Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 51

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Archive 45

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Archive 49

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Plethora of redirects

There are a ton of redirects on every possible spelling directing to this article. Any particular reason not to go through and RFD any misspellings that aren't currently being used? RFD says that deleting redirects could break older versions of the articles, but I can't imagine that people for the foreseeable future wouldn't be able to figure out where to look.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:15, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Theres no harm in doing an RFD, but for visibility, please list the disussions here if you do put them up. rootology (C)(T) 15:53, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

discrepencies in Obama birthplace and asymmetrical treatment wrt to Chester A. Arthur [edit: and Andrew Jackson ]

NOTE: Since the following discussion had becoming very long, with arguments on both sides becoming quite repetitive, I boldly "archived" it. Contributors should feel free to open a new section to offer any new thoughts or present a clearer encapsulation of what they'd already presented or argued. ↜Just me, here, now … 06:57, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

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

Discussion closed: tl;dr spam about discrepancies in RS on Obama's birth hospital and the need to cover a controversy over this. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 19:55, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Regarding the following from today's (February 8, 2009) version of the article:

"Barack Obama was born at the Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States,[4][5]"

Here are two sources that state Queen's Hospital as the birthplace of Obama:

Obama described his birth at Queen's Medical Center in Hawaii Aug. 4, 1961, to a young white woman from Kansas and a father of Luo ethnicity from Nyanza Province in Kenya, as an "all-America" story transcending orthodox racial stereotypes and experience.

Sen. Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois Published: Nov. 4, 2008 at 11:14 PM (United Press International)

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/11/02/Sen_Barack_Obama_Democrat_of_Illinois/UPI-33901225647000/ (Retrieved on February 8, 2009)

Barack Hussein OBAMA was born on 4 August 1961 at the Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein OBAMA, Sr. of Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya, and Ann DUNHAM of Wichita, Kansas.

http://genealogy.about.com/od/aframertrees/p/barack_obama.htm (Retrieved on February 8, 2009)

The first article antedates the two sources currently cited by the current article for Obama's birthplace:

4 Maraniss, David (24 August 2008). "Though Obama Had to Leave to Find Himself, It Is Hawaii That Made His Rise Possible". Politics (Washington Post). http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/23/AR2008082301620.html. Retrieved on 27 October 2008.

5 Serafin, Peter (21 March 2004). "Punahou grad stirs up Illinois politics" (Article). Special to the Star-Bulletin (Honolulu Star-Bulletin). http://archives.starbulletin.com/2004/03/21/news/story4.html. Retrieved on 30 November 2008.

and also Will Hoover's Nov. 9, 2008 Honolulu Advertiser article explicitly states that the hospital is unverified:

While most Obama residences can be traced, the hospital where he was born is difficult to document. The desire of historians to pinpoint where Obama's life began has crashed head-on with the modern American propensity toward confidentiality. The federal Health Information Privacy Act of 1999 — a law passed to protect medical records from public scrutiny — prevents hospitals from confirming births, administrators contend.

Will Hoover (November 9, 2008). "Obama's Hawaii boyhood homes drawing gawkers". Honolulu Advertiser. http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20081109/NEWS01/811090361/-1/SPECIALOBAMA08. Retrieved on 6 February 2009.

Therefore with all due respect I request amending the current main Obama article in the following manner to reflect the above conflicting reports:

Barack Hussein OBAMA was allegedly born on 4 August 1961 at either the Queen's Medical Center or the Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States,[new][old4][old5]" ...

where "[new]" refers to the November 2, 2008 UPI article given above.

Also I note that the Wikipedia article for Chester A. Arthur contains a passage discussing the contemporary controversy regarding Arthur's eligibility to become president under the natural born citizen clause of the US Constitution.

From the Feb. 8, 2009 article on Chester A. Arthur:

Most official references list Arthur as having been born in Fairfield in Franklin County, Vermont on October 5, 1829. However, some time in the 1870s Arthur changed it to 1830 to make himself seem a year younger.[2][3] His father had initially migrated to Dunham, Quebec, Canada, where he and his wife at one point owned a farm about 15 miles (24 km) north of the U.S. border.[1] There has long been speculation that the future president was actually born in Canada and that the family moved to Fairfield later. If Arthur had been born in Canada, a minority opinion is that he would not have been a natural-born citizen, even though his mother was a U.S. citizen, and would have been constitutionally ineligible to serve as vice president or president.[4] During the 1880 U.S presidential election a New York attorney, Arthur P. Hinman, was hired to explore rumors of Arthur's foreign birth. Hinman alleged that Arthur was born in Ireland and did not come to the United States until he was fourteen years old. When that story failed to take root Hinman came forth with a new story that Arthur was born in Canada. This claim also fell on deaf ears.[5]

The previous arguments on Wikipedia talk to block references to the Obama Constitutional qualifications controversy do not seem to go very far beyond citing Rush Limbaugh as a source. Arthur's detractor Arthur P. Hinman (allegedly traced to the Democratic Party) wrote a book, but evidently did not even file a lawsuit in any court to challenge Arthur's candidacy or assumption of duties.

In contrast, Phillip J. Berg, Dr. Orly Taitz and about a dozen other plaintiffs have filed their lawsuits in federal and state courts; Obama replied to some of the lawsuits through his lawyers by filing publicly available responding briefs (so the lawsuits had a public impact on his life and his political career). Both controversies occurred during the respective election campaigns. Yet the Arthur natural born citizen controversy is currently permitted by Wikipedia, while the Obama natural born citizen controversy is currently censored. This is uneven treatment and expressly uneven application of Wikipedia policy.

Regrettably, this gives rise to the appearance that an Obama article without any reference to any birthplace controversy is substantially biased.

Eclectix (talk) 00:59, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

There isn't any controversy. It's all in the minds of a few wack jobs, vexatious litigants and sore losers who are embarrassing themselves. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:29, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Forgive me for not reading all of the long post. Could someone distill if he has found reliable sources that conflisct on the place of birth in Hawaii? Or is this more Obama not born in US?Die4Dixie (talk) 02:22, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Don't bother reading it. It's largely incomprehensible, and the sources don't tell us anything new. It's more Obama not born in US, with the addition of completely unrelated information about Chester A. Arthur. Ward3001 (talk) 02:33, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Addressing Scjessey's points in his or her comment dated 01:29, 9 February 2009 (UTC)-- It indicates (1) conflict and uncertainty in citations regarding the hospital where Obama is alleged to have been born and (2) asymmetrical disparate treatment of natural born citizenship controversies when the Arthur and Obama main Wikipedia entries are compared side by side, lending the appearance of bias in the case of the latter. Eclectix (talk) 03:05, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Addressing Ward3001's points in his or her comment dated 02:33, 9 February 2009 (UTC)-- With all due respect-- unjustified and ad-hominem. Readers, please read what I wrote (thanks in advance for your patience) carefully before passing judgment or relying on summaries (which obviously may be biased). Nowhere did I claim that Obama was not born in the US, and the comparison of the Obama main article to the Arthur main article is completely justified under the circumstances controversies regarding their natural born citizenship qualifications for the Presidential office have been reported and discussed in public during their candidacies and during their terms of Presidential office. Eclectix (talk) 03:05, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

And we care about the name of the hospital where Obama was born because ...???? And we care about where Chester A. Arthur was born because ...???? Talk to me like I'm a three-year-old; I'm have a very hard time grasping what any of this has to do with anything. Ward3001 (talk) 03:39, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

If we have conflicting reliable sources per WP:RS that give different places in Hawaii for the birth then the article should just say Hawaii. Please give the RS,s that conflict with the consesus version place of birth so that they can be evaluated without the asymetrical disparate stuff, Eclectix.Thanks. The only controversy has come from unreliable sources and those who have feed into the controversy have been marginalized by the vast majority of RS¨S.Die4Dixie (talk) 04:18, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Personal biases aside, (and you all know who you are), if Wikipedia is going to survive as a viable entity and stop being the butt of every teacher's and student's jokes (and trust me I hear them all of the time), then articles on wikipedia must have a semblance of balance. The Chester A. Arthur argument is very important, and I am glad someone had brought it up. Some time ago, there was a discussion about having bios of the presidents conform to a standard. Mainly about the name in the infobox. It was decided on this talk page to use the name Barak Obama, without his middle name, in the info box because it conformed with the bios of the other presidents. Now I am hearing that the article on C.A. Arthur has nothing to do with this article. If conformity was so important then, how is not now? I had heard of the Chester A. Arthur birth place controversy years ago, but like most historians, I dismissed it as politicing. Yet is was a controversy at the time, just as Obama's birth place is a controversy today. Adding the information here to conform to the article on Arthur would not make Obama not be president. Only the SCOTUS can rule on that, but I have said it before, this controversy will not go away, no matter how much some editors wish to ignore it. Ignoring the problem, rather than working with other editors on a compromise has only made the problem worse. Calling the "birth place controversy" only in the mind of a few wack jobs can and is now being construed as a personal attack. Please refrain from making those attacks in the future, whoever made them.--Jojhutton (talk) 04:22, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I don´t know to whom you refer when you talk about "personal biases aside". Are you accusing me of trying to keep negative or unpopular material out of an article for political motives? I piss off left and right.(left more than right, but view my contributions if you are operating under some misconceptions about this user). Thanks.Die4Dixie (talk) 16:04, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I had no intention of accusing anyone inparticular. Your comment just happened to be the last one before I added mine. That is why I tried not to add my comment directly indented behind yours. I meant the comment for the group as a whole, myself included. I am sorry that you took it personal, I will try harder in the future to make my comments less ambiguous.--Jojhutton (talk) 19:59, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I will gladly and freely state that the Obama "birth place controversy" is only in the mind of a few wack jobs. If you feel offended by that, then that is your problem, not ours. This somewhat ties into the argument I made in a previous section; that this "if its there, then it must be here" is pretty much an intellectually bankrupt argument. In the case of Arthur, we have some legitimately suspicious circumstances about the man retroactively changing his birth place after the fact. That is given some small coverage in the article, but the conspiracy is ultimately dismissed. In the case of Obama, there is little that his driven this story other than fear and hysteria over a black man with a funny, foreign-sounding name. There hasn't been a shred of legitimate, actual substance to the "not born in Hawaii" allegations. There is no compromise to be had on issues of WP:BLP, WP:RS, and so on. Tarc (talk) 05:08, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Ah, but if some can keep blowing on this spark of suspicion, the hope is that it will erupt into a flame, even on an encylopedia that they consider a joke (never mind that this issue is barely a blip in real encylopedias). So let's grab anything we can find that might be flammable ... hey, wasn't there some concern about another President's birthplace decades ago ... let's see ... ah yes: Chester A. Arthur. Ward3001 (talk) 15:02, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Addendum (from Eclectix)-- I contend that I have established, without any credible doubt or possibility of challenge, that multiple credible citations yield at a minimum two Barack Obama, Jr. birthplaces. It is noteworthy given that Obama was born in 1961 (in contrast to a time period in which it is generally accepted that accurate records were not kept or difficult to preserve). The criterion for inclusion is, or at least should be, whether a fact is noteworthy-- not whether it is noteworthy to or for Obama in particular. That Obama has chosen not to release more specific information concerning his birthplace during a presidential election is also noteworthy. It is not merely a we-versus-them issue. Here is a reasonable person test: if there is no controversy, then no one should be able to envision or anticipate any problem erecting a National Historical Landmark at the place where our current president, Barack Obama, was born. But wait, according to UPI (note: not a fringe source) above he was born at Queen's Medical Center, while according to the Washington Post (note: not a fringe source) he was born at Kapi'olani Medical Center. So which one is it? Why would two non-fringe sources not agree on this basic attribute of Obama? Now stand back a moment and think what other recent president has more than one birthplace according to non-fringe sources. For example, according to the New York Times (note: not a fringe source),

George W. Bush was born at the Grace New Haven Community Hospital in New Haven, Conn.. No controversy is noted about this (at least in Wikipedia discussion on the George W. Bush entry). By contrast, controversy about birthplace is noted, not just for former president Chester A. Arthur as I noted previously, but also for former president Andrew Jackson. From the February 9, 2009 main Wikipedia article about Andrew Jackson, References:

4 "Museum of the Waxhaws and Andrew Jackson Memorial". http://www.perigee.net/~mwaxhaw/faq.html. Retrieved on 2008-01-13. Controversies about Jackson's birthplace went far beyond the dispute between North and South Carolina. Because his origins were humble and obscure compared to those of his predecessors, wild rumors abounded about Jackson's past. Joseph Nathan Kane, in his almanac-style book Facts About the Presidents, lists no fewer than eight localities, including two foreign countries, that were mentioned in the popular press as Jackson's "real" birthplace – including Ireland, where both of Jackson's parents were born.

Thus the main article about Obama excludes controversies about birthplace, citizenship and presidential office qualifications concerns under the U.S. Constitution that for whatever reasons were *not* excluded in main Wikipedia articles for at least two other presidents, Jackson and Arthur. I venture to state that the controversies surrounding Obama have received orders of magnitude more recognition in the contemporary public record than the controversies surrounding Arthur and Jackson, but the Wikipedia treatment in the main articles as they currently (February 9, 2009) exist is in inverse proportion to that contemporary public awareness. I think readers would, if they ever go so far as to read the Wiki discussions about these issues, be tempted to consider that Wiki editors are (for whatever reasons) whitewashing the main Obama article and censoring controversy that might be viewed by readers who vote as unflattering to Obama.

It is indeed true that anyone can file a lawsuit. However, it is also true that anyone can write a book. I contend it is much more unlikely to arrange one's vital records (or lack thereof in the public arena) so as to have two non-fringe sources claim two different birthplaces for the same (contemporary, and allegedly born in the US) person. It is even more unlikely if the person who succeeds in that happens to be the current President of the United States.

Before the "rush" to assert that Obama has been extensively vetted commences in this forum, the California State Elections Code (http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/calawquery?codesection=elec&codebody=&hits=20) (for one) regrettably contains no vetting specifics (see Division 6-- too long to quote here) to check for attributes such as candidates' natural born citizenry. It is non-partisan (no party nor candidate is mentioned here) to contend that the existing procedure for vetting candidates may be insufficient to guarantee that the U.S. Constitution is not violated, at least during the time up until the Electoral College votes are announced, discussed, and recorded in Congress.

Finally Andrew Jackson's main page contains a "See Also" section that mentions other Wikipedia articles associated with Jackson. Why not have a "See Also" section for Barack Obama? Should there not be a policy enforced in which any split-off pages from the main page are at least cited in the main page itself, for any given topic? How would a reader in good faith use Wikipedia if it does not even reference itself for ancillary pages from the main topic page? Does not the lack of a complete and accurate See Also section imply that Wikipedia is -- de facto-- hiding rather than providing information to readers who use it in good faith on the presumption of accuracy and completeness? Or would that be too much to presume?

Specifically a See Also section could be added such as the following:

Canvassing on possible upcoming RfC on Obama birthplace and Chester A. Arthur

Unrelated discussion focussing on individual conduct and not article content Bigbluefish (talk) 03:23, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Users are reminded that canvassing in order to sway opinions on a Request for Comment is strictly prohibited. Users are also reminded that the initial statement explaining the issue(s) involved in an RfC must be absolutely neutral. Thank you. Ward3001 (talk) 01:13, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

The thread was already archived, and there was no canvassing involved. The user was only giving me a heads up that he left a comment on another users talk page. See comment here [1].--Jojhutton (talk) 02:00, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Specifically seeking like-minded individuals is canvassing, and that's exactly what was done: "I'm absolutely certain you know what it is like to have a justified but minority viewpoint"..."Thanks for any explicit support", "Thanks for any support". Grsz¹¹ 02:35, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes you are correct Grsz11, canvassing like minded individuals is one part of canvassing, but don't forget that canvassing must have a purpose. There was no harm in this user giving me information about the archived thread. It was not intended to sway a vote or a discussion, as has been alledged by Ward3001, since the thread was already archived.--Jojhutton (talk) 02:42, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

No Jojhutton, don't spin this away from the RfC. This canvassing was done to notify users about an upcoming RfC, not an archived thread. And there most certainly was canvassing. Here are some quotes in this canvassing, taken from users' talk pages in notifying about the RfC: "deletion without (IMHO) justification. Thanks for any support"; "I'm absolutely certain you know what it is like to have a justified but minority viewpoint.) Thanks for any explicit support". These are clearly not neutral and in the context of an RfC is a violation of policy. And here is a link where the same user set up an RfC. Don't pretend this is not about an RfC. Ward3001 (talk) 02:44, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I had no idea that the user had opend that Thread. It seems that he may have been doing what you said after all. It must not have been a very good canvass, since I never knew what he was trying to do. I would chalk the whole incident up to inexperiance on that users part.--Jojhutton (talk) 03:14, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Funny, he told you about it in this message] on your talk page that he left about 30 minutes ago. Ward3001 (talk) 03:24, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Polls on reopening discussion

this is a procedural mess and not the kind of thing to resolve by poll

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

(Note: Wikipedia does not operate by votes, but sometimes polls can help in determining consensus.)
Please indicate whether you wish for this discussion to remain Open or to Close it by signing with ~~~~.

"Open"

Open and Compromise--Jojhutton (talk) 19:54, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
'Open, Continue Discussion, Debate or Accept Constructive Proposals for Improving Main Article per Wikipedia Invitation' BobbleHead admits he never read the reasoning I gave. Per Wikipedia policy, deletion should be the last resort. A consensus was not yet reached and there was new information given that was not previously in the main article or in talk. Continuing discussion in talk does not compromise the main article but it does advance the notion that Wikipedia is politically biased. Almost all objections are notably loaded with ad hominem invective against Wikipedia policy ("Why do we have to deal with this shit twice a week?"). Eclectix (talk) 00:03, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

later addition

Keep open. (Only since it seems unWikilike to me to close it so summarily....) ↜Just me, here, now … 04:01, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
P.S. Although I personally believe Obama was born in Hawaii, my interest here is one of proper process: being careful not to close down NPOV examination of a possibly reliable source. ↜Just me, here, now … 07:25, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
Open with caveat. Take your source, the UPI one, to the RS board and get a determination. My open vote is contingent on that happening before I go to bed. I also suggest that you visist the board for BLP and see what the recommendadtion is if your source is deemed relaible. Let me make this clear: Appeals to emotion on my talk page make me think people think I´m stupid. I´m an open book and put my opinions and point of view out so that people can judge them in light of edits that I make, not to look for Confederates or be subjected to transparent manipulations.Die4Dixie (talk) 04:20, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

"Close"

Ward3001 (talk) 19:46, 9 February 2009 (UTC).
Why do we have to deal with this shit twice a week? Can't these people just stay on their pills?ThuranX (talk) 21:32, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

later addition

No one cares about what tinfoil nutter sources have to say on the matter, this subject matter has been debunked so utterly and completely. Nothing new has been produced on the subject, and these repetitive discussions are not being initiated in good faith. Sorry to burst some bubbles here, but we really did land on the moon, Islamic terrorists really did blow up the WTC, Courtney Love didn't kill Kurt, and Obama is a natural-born citizen. Tarc (talk) 04:09, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
He can reopen if RS board approves the source, and reccomend a neutrally termed inquiry at BLP if source is declare reliable.Die4Dixie (talk) 05:25, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

. . . Cont.

Let's all take a moment for a nice cup of tea.

That's better. Now. Eclectix (talk · contribs) has produced two sources saying that Obama was born in the Queen's Medical Center, in conflict with the majority of other sources, and contends that this constitutes an ambiguity. This has been dignified with a number of responses predominantly considering the grounds presented unsufficient.

Eclectix has every right to disagree in good faith with any particular response and continue the discussion. The discussion is still there, you just have to click a link to let it eat your scrollbar.

The position I think most people are in agreement on is that of these sources, neither is as reliable as the sources for his actual birth hospital, neither constitutes a tertiary source to describe a disagreement or ambiguity and neither identifies the source of the claim he was born in the QMC. The Chester A. Arthur ambiguity is far more reliably documented and is a poor comparison.

Perhaps if this is inadequate explanation Eclectix could establish concisely why this does not justify the status quo of the article content. If there is any more to say on this matter let it be about content not disruptive wikipoliticking. Bigbluefish (talk) 03:23, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

IMO while Eclectix should indeed be politely reminded to keep legitimate canvassing of experienced editors neutral in tone, I also believe that scrolling up threads on this talkpage -- which threads, incidentally (I don't need to remind anyone here), become automatically archived after sitting idle, with no further commenting, for a week -- should only be done in cases where consensus has been reached that any remaining participant or participants in it is/are troll/s. And my !vote in the present case is that Eclectix seems no troll. ↜Just me, here, now … 03:43, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

There was an active discussion with much new information. The discussion was suddenly hidden. Even the titles are now misleading. I had added the point about the discrepancy in handling between Obama and Andrew Jackson main pages. But the discussion has now been archived and I am being boxed in by being forced to repeat myself here when I had already given reasons, information, and suggestions (mostly new) already in the now hidden discussion. The editor that hid it justified it by "TL:DR" which means too long, did not read. With all due respect, I request un-archiving it to permit discussion, and you should respond to what I wrote and respond to all my points rather than ask me to repeat myself as if I had done anything wrong. Much of the length is from editors who erroneously claimed nothing new or were uncivil. Why not delete the uncivil and non-responsive remarks rather than hide the discussion? That would make it shorter and easier to read. The persons whose remarks are uncivil or off point or not constructive or helpful would be welcome to re-add their comments in a civil manner. That's earlier business, and the stuff about canvassing which I regret as a newbie is aftermath and is not pertinent and anyway would not have happened at all had the civility policy and policy for using talk as a place to make and discuss constructive suggestions in good faith been adhered to in the first place. Any concern about canvassing is newer and goes away if the old business (incivility and arbitrary hiding of original discussion in good faith) is taken care of first. If I repeat points now hidden here, it seems to me self-evident that it will be also subject to being hidden, this time as redundant, and then editors would only be given a quasi-legitimate reason to block me for now and the future. And someone can perhaps add Andrew Jackson to the title, or let me know it is OK to do so, because I confess the environment is such now that I am discouraged from trying to suggest something in good faith for fear of violating some obscure ancillary point of procedure. Also the closing of the old poll inside the hidden topic and the start of two polls here rather than one is all unclear, why two polls, what is A and what is B? Should there be just one poll, reopen the topic? Should people agree to keep all contributions from here on be civil without ad hominem or swear words? Eclectix (talk) 07:09, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I should like to bring up the topic of "bad data injection." Passing around bad information can lead to a large volume of entries in a database apparently in near overwhelming agreement with each other. The problem is if the information is wrong to begin with, or the source is inherently unverifiable, or both. Source: Fault Detection and Reliability: Knowledge Based & Other Approaches. Singh, M. University of California and Permagon Press, 1987. I have cited an undisputed third party source that says the hospital that Obama was alleged to have been born in is conflictingly reported in sources, unverifiable and controversial. No one here has provided a counterclaim to that. I could cite more sources but then I would be open to charges here of excessive length. So give this point of view an honest break and please cease the unjustified use of the Goldilocks defense (too much, not enough, and in practice, never just right). Eclectix (talk) 07:35, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

The 2nd and 3rd polls have just now been deleted with no justification given. I request reopening for an RFC. At the time they were closed there were two votes in favor of keeping discussion open and one vote in favor of closing discussion. Thank you. Eclectix (talk) 07:37, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

(ec) I gave the justification in the template and edit summary when I closed the polls - opening and closing discussions is not subject to polling, and the discussion is such a mess that it is pointless. The meta-discussion is getting us sidetracked. Occasionally one can delete or move a particularly bad comment but when an entire discussion falls apart you can't effective clean it up. It's better to archive discussions and try again than start editing lots of people's comments. What I would suggest is for the original poster and anyone who thinks there is a legitimate issue or discrepancy between two birth hospitals to make a succinct, to-the-point proposal for what the article should say, together with any evidence and argument for changing the existing text. Please stick to the point, on this article and on the encyclopedia, and let's not get sidetracked about what editors think of each other or of off-wiki events. You don't need permission to make a proposal, just go ahead and do it. But please be ready to accept it if people don't agree. An RfC at this point is premature. Let's see the proposal first, minus all the bickering. Wikidemon (talk) 07:45, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and a suggestion. Don't be afraid to just cut and paste your earlier proposal, and say that you're doing it to start fresh because the old discussion got messed up. If people want to litter the discussion with incivility, comments that there's nothing new, etc., you have to be proactive about it... Create a section break after your proposal, like ===proposal=== ... and then another called ... ===Discussion=== It's considered bad form to delete all but the worst incivility, but don't be afraid of moving off topic stuff to a different heading area where it belongs. If you stay on top of it, you can sometimes keep things from degenerating like they did. Wikidemon (talk) 07:49, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

A new discussion would simply invite the same inappropriate archiving giving an additional justification of redundancy. In principle, the root problem is that the discussion was prematurely closed; policies should be applied such that obtaining accuracy should not involve wars of attrition; moderation should be used to help, not hinder progress; discussion pages are for discussion. If principle is to be preserved, it seems to me that the best way to handle this is to unhide the discussion and if necessary monitor and put those who were uncivil and did not contribute positively or censored prematurely on probation instead of penalizing and marginalizing the persons who acted in good faith. Eclectix (talk) 11:17, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

This is where I would start WP:RSN, and have the source evaluated. If the sources that are in conflict with the present article are declared by consensus there to be reliable, or that with conflicting sources reliability cannot be ascertained, I will support a change in the article. Please do this. It will establish credibility for your case, and is exactly why that board exists. I´m not unsympathetic, but I am not satisfied that the sources are reliable. If you convince me that they are I will tenaciously advocate a change to reflect what the majority of reliable sources do not contest.Die4Dixie (talk) 08:21, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Before this circular debate continues on, I highly recommend that each source that disputes where Barack Obama was born be posted up on WP:RSN where they can be independently judged to be reliable sources as per Wikipedia policies and standards. Brothejr (talk) 11:22, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think reliability is the issue though, it is a simple matter of weight and numbers. Given 1,000 sources, some guy digs up 2 that say one hospital, with 998 that say another. Which do we go with? Tarc (talk) 14:45, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Not even that; are the two reliable sources without a history of partisanship? Are these nationally accepted, mainstream sources, or are they something like the Washington Times, or some random blog thing? The value of the 2 sources matters as well for weighting them up (all but unlikely, as they're clearly meeting even a kid's level version of WP:FRINGE by numbers alone) or weighting them down (likely, based on the value the media as a true story has placed on this). rootology (C)(T) 15:57, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Both sources are perfectly reliable in their own right, but mention Obama's birth hospital as a matter of anecdotal detail. There's no evidence that they deliberately rather than erroneously contradict the mass media. You may delete my reply if you redact your comments since you clearly didn't read the discussion very carefully. Bigbluefish (talk) 17:07, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I think in terms of level of detail, it is apples and oranges. Taking a suggestion from earlier, let's start afresh (while avoiding redundancy). I have cited a non-disputed source that claims the birth hospital is *not* identifiable, and why, with *timely* *contemporary* *investigative* *detail*. It cites a primary source (Kapo'aliani Medical Center official and exact quote) why it is *not* identifiable. There is nothing anecdotal about that. The non-disputed non-anecdotal source effectively questions the other two sources currently cited in the main article-- which have now become disputed by way of a timely non-discredited non-anecdotal source, and therefore are now thrown into doubt, regardless of the quantity-equals-accuracy argument...

Let me stop you there. The Honolulu Advertiser does not say that his birth hospital is hard to identify. It says it's hard to document. It makes no challenge to the veracity of the family's claims of place of birth, just notes that the primary documentation is not publicly available to check. The subject of this tangent is the genealogical study of Obama's life, not Obama's life. How people find out facts and decide on what is commonly acceptable (and in the Advertiser, Kapiolani Medical Center is identified as commonly acceptable) is not of biographical interest in the main article. Sorry to split up your post but I think if we address these points individually people are more likely to read it and take the discussion more seriously. Bigbluefish (talk) 21:14, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I could not find where in either of the currently cited articles (Maranis and Serafin) state anyone or anything, much less anyone in the family, as a source of any information concerning birth hospital. If someone asserts someone in the family is the unambiguous source of that information, someone should provide a specific citation that is currently in the main article or in one or more of the *cited* sources. Assumptions are just that, assumptions, and assuming facts not based on independently verifiable facts or independently verifiable primary sources regrettably does not make any secondary sources any more accurate. Any family claims concerning the birth hospital are not sourced here or in any sources so there is no reason to consider them here and no reason for needing such a challenge in the HA article, which proceeds to go beyond any lesser claims in any case and go direct to the hospital itself. Yes, the HA article says "document," not "identify," but the distinction is moot where accuracy is concerned, and accuracy is an issue now. The article chronicles the difficulty in documenting the birth hospital, specifically, the writer's lack of success in that regard, despite previous published secondary reports. That is precisely one of the main points of the article-- there is no there there. As to how people find out facts, that is in constantly in flux. The words "commonly" and "acceptable" do not appear in the HA article. Consider UPI. Consider the HIPA law. Kapo'aliani Medical Center spokesperson specifically declines to confirm any of the secondary sources. What may have been routine at one time (to some here anyway) regarding confirmation of a specific birth location is now not possible in Hawaii. That is documented in the HA article. So the convention, presuming there is one for establishing a birth location, needs to reflect the current reality implied by the HIPA law. Eclectix (talk) 23:02, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't the HA article say in the paragraph after the one you keep quoting say that Obama's family and other sources say he was born at Kapi'olani? If the HA article were added as a source for saying he was born in Kapi'olani resolve your concerns? --Bobblehead ^(rants) 23:20, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, (if it is OK to quote an excerpt here) I read that it says that "[T]he desire of historians to pinpoint where Obama's life began has crashed head-on with the modern American propensity toward confidentiality. The federal Health Information Privacy Act of 1999 ... prevents hospitals from confirming births, administrators contend." I think that more accurately reflects the current reality. I was led to Wiki in the first place by sources that cited the main Obama article as where it had been written at one point in time that Obama had been born at Queen's Medical Center. The current version does not seem any more accurate to me than previous versions when viewed from a dispassionate logical framework. Wiki does not start with a clean slate. The history of the main Obama article is evidence of some of the confusion. The improvement would be to back off the specificity until a better quality (not quantity) source is identified. Even more forthrightly, the difficulty can be explicitly acknowledged as in the HA article. The HA article at least attempts to inform the readership about the current and so far uncontested accuracy concerns. I think the difficulty and underlying controversy is what drove the the HA article to be written to begin with. More may be under the surface waiting to come up and bite someone who unambiguously states a fact without citing sources that cite unambiguous (who/what/where/when) and ideally independently verifiable primary sources-- no one knows right now. I think it would be better to be more conservative. Eclectix (talk) 23:42, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I think that's where you're getting mixed up. You're confusing the aims of historians with the aims of Wikipedia. Obama's biography is not concerned with how certain historians want the facts to be, but what the world generally acknowledges. The abundance of sources give no second thought to his birth at Kapi'olani. I'm not entirely convinced that the hospital is necessary in the article (the dearth of concrete sources like official biographies containing this piece of information gives a hint as to how interesting most biographers see that information) but if we are to do so, the current representation is both justified and sufficient. Bigbluefish (talk) 23:54, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

The lack of concrete sources may be more due to the lack of official biographies on Obama as a whole, than a lack of interest in the information. Not sure how mch weight one should give it, but a search on Google Books came up with this. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 00:06, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Here is one article where some of the conflicting articles may have drawn information from. "Barack Obama was born on August 4, 1961 at the Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii... Obama ... lived with his grandmother Madelyn Dunham and half-sister of our very own, Maya Soetoro.... Ms. Soetoro explained, "He's my brother. We share the same mother, though our fathers are different..." A New Face in Politics, by Bennett Guira, Rainbow Edition Newsletter, November 2004. Vol. 2, Issue 3 (p. 2). This is a concrete source and quotes a family member, Maya Soetero, in November 2004, in Chicago, Ill. If family members are relied upon for Obama's birth hospital as Kapo'aliani Medical Center, at a minimum, they evidently conflict, and the contradicting source or sources cited so far are decidedly less specific as to who/what/where/when. A discriminant and tiebreaker would be a primary authoritative source such as a medical center official or document-- but we don't have that. Eclectix (talk) 01:52, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay... I don't think a high school newsletter can be considered a reliable source... --Bobblehead ^(rants) 00:43, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

As an aside, it should be noted that nowhere does Maya actually say that Obama was born in Queen's hospital. Rather it is included in the lead of the article. At the time this story was written, Wikipedia identified Obama's birth hospital as Queen's Hospital so it is likely the author of the story got that bit of misinformation there. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 00:58, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Likewise, please note that the February 1, 2009 HA article by Wayne Harada (http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090201/COLUMNISTS17/902010311/1153) does not quote Obama directly-- only a third party. Eclectix (talk) 01:52, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Based on your comment you seemed to give the impression that Maya was the source of the claim that Obama was born in Queen's Hospital:This is a concrete source and quotes a family member, Maya Soetero, in November 2004, in Chicago, Ill. If family members are relied upon for Obama's birth hospital as Kapo'aliani Medical Center, at a minimum, they evidently conflict, and the contradicting source or sources cited so far are decidedly less specific as to who/what/where/when. I was merely noting that Maya did not claim that Obama was born in Queen's Hospital, but rather it was the author of the story that made that claim. Maya was quoted in the article, but not in regards to her brother's birth hospital. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 02:03, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

No, I conceded with the Nov. 2004 Rainbow Edition Newsletter article that it is not *irrefutably* Maya as the source. Likewise, please note that it is not *irrefutably* Barack Obama as the source in the February 1, 2009 Honolulu Advertiser article source, but a third party who is not a family member or a direct witness to the birth and who is merely reading (what he claims is) a letter from Obama. So I think it's even in that regard. Eclectix (talk) 02:27, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Neither of the (two) other sources currently used in the article cite any independently available primary source, and so cannot be independently verified as correct. They offer more detail, but less verifiable detail. There has been no counter citation to offer a source with more verifiable detail. Therefore I assert here that the birth hospital is at this time thrown into doubt by the source(s) I cited in the topic that is now archived and hidden. The problem with shutting down the discussion and moving it somewhere far away from anything directly under Obama is that there may be more and more detailed non-disputed and non-anecdotal sources out there, and someone who is following Obama in particular may know it and cite it here in support of one or another view. Finding those additional sources is best accomplished by keeping the discussion under Obama Talk, not moving the discussion to somewhere else not explicitly under Obama. Still as of now no one has challenged (with a countering non-anecdotal non-discredited source) the fundamental *accuracy* of the source(s) I cited. So if the primary point of Obama Talk here is to improve the Obama main article quality, and that is what seems to be claimed here, I think the discussion about Obama's birth hospital is most appropriately re-opened here, under Obama Talk-- because that is where the vast majority of users and potential editors with new, non-contended information on Obama that can possibly help will congregate for discussion. Prematurely shutting down discussions in Obama Talk before conflicting and more informative non-discredited sources have been solicited, discussed, supported, or discredited, and avoiding fundamental logic, such as happened to my original input right here, indicates to me and any other dispassionate reader that something is wrong right here (yielding the appearance of institutional bias). The partisan parrots on both sides are easily spotted by lack of logic or new sources or repetition, and so relatively easily defended against and/or ignored-- unavoidably, the relatively small and relatively harmless price paid for any collaborative open discussion containing any new information or observation. In the archive I also cited the discussion of conflicting/obscured birthplace reports in the Arthur and Jackson main pages as precedent for discussing the conflicting/obscured Obama birthplace in the Obama main page. Here is a new, slightly amended, amended proposal:

Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States (at which specific location within Honolulu is explicitly reported as not independently verifiable [1new] and in other earlier reports [6old], [7old] reported with no independently verifiable primary source cited; [1new] explicitly documents an unsuccessful attempt by the writer to verify the claim of [6old] and [7old] with an independent primary source),...

[1new] [as in archive/hidden]

[1new] antedates [6old] and [7old] and if people contend [6old] and [7old] represent something that eclipses [1new] in some manner they should by the same argument consider that the writer and publisher of [1new] is therefore fully aware of [6old] and [7old] and has nevertheless chosen to add more information to the public view in good faith-- which so far is not contested here. I contend there is currently on the table an identified problem with the main page, and I think the discussion should rightfully be, given the issue now documented in the archive, as amended above, does anyone have an improvement on it and justification for that improvement? I urge any and responders to give detail and logic in support of any constructive alternative, or find citable detail that supercedes, not uncivil unresponsive invective or repetition of unverifiable secondary detail. Eclectix (talk) 20:19, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Without commenting on the above, which source you referring to as [1new]? UPI? About.com? Can you please report the link for your source so we can be clear on what you are discussing? thanks, --guyzero | talk 20:55, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, "[1new]" refers to:

Will Hoover (November 9, 2008). "Obama's Hawaii boyhood homes drawing gawkers". Honolulu Advertiser. http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20081109/NEWS01/811090361/-1/SPECIALOBAMA08. Retrieved on 6 February 2009.

In the interest of attempting to achieve greater consensus I avoided (for the moment) the concern about the November 2, 2008 UPI article, as one person seemed in the hidden archive to have a problem ("dubious") with it. At the time I initially mentioned the UPI article, I was only generally aware of the historical and generally favorable reputation of UPI, and its scattered use in Wiki. Eclectix (talk) 22:17, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Your proposal is not supported by this source. This source merely states that is hard for folks to call a hospital and ask if someone is born there because the hospital is bound by privacy and HIPA laws to not reveal that information. Your proposal is synthesis of multiple sources which is expressly forbidden in our biography of living people policy and no original research policy. We have dozens/hundreds of reliable sources that plainly state he was born at Kapi'olani. We have a single or few marginal sources that say something else. The BLP and RS policies dictate to us that we must follow the preponderance mainstream reliable sourcing. thanks, --guyzero | talk 22:35, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I do not perceive it to be a synthesis any more than any other article, especially in regards to the articles currently cited without any attribution as to the source of the birth location. It reports new information, a direct quote from a hospital. Apples and oranges. I see now there is a caption on the right that attributes the claim he was born at Kapo'aliani Medical Center to (unspecified) family members ("according to his family"), yet there is still no specific attribution and no independently verifiable confirmation. Which family member and when is not stated, so it remains incompletely confirmed by even this source. There is a who/when/where/what rule for establishing veracity (fundamental journalism). This article is still not cited in the main Obama page and so can't be used in arguments in support of of the main page or unvouched items in other articles, cited in the main Obama page, in which at least I could not find any attribution of the source for the birth hospital. Also, I have not presented any original research. I have used all third party articles. Please show where I have presented any original research as defined by Wiki policy (i.e., unpublished) (thanks). Eclectix (talk) 23:25, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending, we don't have to meet your standards in order to include "facts", just Wikipedia's standards. While there are sources out there that list Queen's Hospital as his place of birth, the preponderance of sources indicate he was born at Kapi'olani, including the one your trying to include to support your claim that his birth hospital can not be verified. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 23:39, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Whatever, the alleged application of the standards evidently led many to believe Wiki as an authority for Obama's birth hospital as Queen's in past years, would you not concur? A better phraseology and/or more definitive citations would alleviate that. So far we have plenty of documented confusion and documented conflict, but no independently verifiable primary sources, and no direct statement from Obama the individual, and no direct statement from any witnesses. We do have specific semi-informed answers in the forms of an interview of a sister and a comment from a Congressman-- which it would be fair to be reported as they are, an interview of a sister and a comment from a Congressman, with citation attribution. The prior long term confusion here justifies *more* caution, not the same amount (or less), unless wiki collectively wants to be doomed to repeating mistakes from not learning from recent past history on this. Eclectix (talk) 04:57, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Eclectix, rather than adding to this little meta sub-discussion here of yours with my attempting to defend WP's operating procedures and principles, I'll just link to the essay WP:Truth. ↜Just me, here, now … 05:45, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay... At the risk of repeating myself, the article in The Rainbow Edition is not an interview with Obama's sister and it certainly does not meet the reliable source requirements. What we have here is a student journalist that unfortunately used an unreliable source (Wikipedia) to create the lead to an article about Barack Obama that included quotes from his sister. None of these quotes from his sister included any information about Obama's birth hospital so to attribute the error from that article to Maya is not only inaccurate, but dishonest. ::::::: The only thing the inaccurate inclusion of Queen's Hospital in this article from 2004 to 2006 shows is that it is extremely important to include sources for anything we include here because people use Wikipedia as a source even though they shouldn't. Fortunately, we now have three sources for Obama being born in Kapi'olani, one of which is a quote from a letter from Obama. At this point the discussion is closed, you just appear to be unaware of this. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 05:32, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I did not make any formal proposal in the above to add the Rainbow article, but did note it in passing as containing an interview with Maya. I agree it is probably not totally clear that Maya gave the Queen's information to the writer. I personally don't know if the writer was a student or not. If she was, then there seems a chance that Maya got an advance copy for comment and markup, but that is admittedly speculative since mistakes can be made. Did the writer use Wiki for the article? What is the proof of that? Either she did, or there is a third, earlier common source that has yet to be found. Personally I think the earlier common source is possible and so not to be discounted. Eclectix (talk) 07:07, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

The existing main page states Obama was born at Kapi'olani unconditionally and without any primary source attribution in the two citations (Maraniss and Serafin). The February 1, 2009 HA article contains a citation, an address given by Neil Abercrombie at a local hospital event, who in turn cites an (unpublished) letter from Obama, which is still secondhand. It also acknowledges that a question concerning Obama's birth hospital exists. So in the interest of clarity and accuracy, I would argue for transparency: the main article should reflect that Abercrombie read a letter from Obama (or technically that he alleged to be from Obama) and he (Abercrombie) stated Obama stated in the letter that he was born at Kapi'olani. That's what happened, without dispute. We can't go further to assert it proves anything unconditionally (we don't an article where a reporter transcribes part of the Obama letter to Abercrombie, or an article containing a direct quote from Obama himself, or an eyewitness hospital employee to the birth, or an article containing a reference to the birth certificate containing the address of the birthplace-- these are all still lacking from the citations given to date) but it *does* indicate that prior to the reading of the letter, that some questions concerning Obama's birth hospital remained, which had not been dispelled by the currently cited Maraniss or Seraphin article citations-- this tends to dispel-- for whatever reasons, please don't blame the messenger-- contentions that the current Wiki main page reflects incontrovertible fact in an incontrovertible manner. To me, it indicates that there is room for constructive improvement to the current main Wiki page. Again, don't shoot messenger-- I have been in response mode since starting the now archived discussion many hours ago almost without stop, in fear that at any moment this discussion too will be prematurely frozen. I hope there is at least consensus that there is room for improvement with the two "new" (to Wiki) HA articles. The first step to resolving a problem is recognizing that a problem exists. If there is consensus that the new HA articles add to the verifiability, and if no one in the next time period (of what length I do not know, but I would recommend a couple of days at a minimum, to give adequate time for all concerned to add to the civil and productive discussion) comes up with more definitive articles, that a proposal be drafted incorporating the new information and submitted here for further consideration. The general favorable welcome given the two new HA articles here in combination with both of them noting outstanding "difficulties" and/or "questions" along with the new HIPA considerations mentioned in the first HA article should (?) be sufficient to dispel allegations of "recentism" (or not-- ??). Eclectix (talk) 07:07, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, the original statemant and question was whether the two articles (Chester A. Arthur and Barak Obama) should be in sync? Or in other words, should the Obama article continue to ignore that a controversy excists over place of birth (true or not), while the Arthur article has the information included. The two controversies seem to be exactly the same.--Jojhutton (talk) 21:06, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Similar perhaps, but very much an overstatement to describe them as "exactly the same". Beyond differences in specifics, the Wikipedia precautions in WP:RECENT and WP:WEIGHT very much apply to this comparison. It is far easier (as well as much more objective) to discuss a controversy from a President 125 years ago than it is to discuss an incumbent President who took office three weeks ago and who has been the subject of a tremendous number of unfounded rumors because he has a foreign-sounding name, has a father who was Muslim, and is the first African-American President. Regardless of any other similarities between the two sets of issues, those considerations alone are enough to caution us to give the Obama matter some time before adding to the article. As a point of comparison, when John F. Kennedy ran for President, rumors were flying that the Pope would be instructing his every move if he became President. Now, less than 50 years later, anyone who espoused such an opinion would be considered a crackpot by anyone except the most extremist anti-Catholics. Ward3001 (talk) 21:21, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:RECENT seems to be the defining differance, not so much with WP:WEIGHT. Yet if one article can handle the weight issue, I believe that this article can as well. Given time, I believe that the controversy will ultimatly be included, since it seems everytime the topic is brought up, more editors seem to be in favor of adding it. In a few months, who knows?.--Jojhutton (talk) 21:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:RECENT and WP:WEIGHT often go hand in hand, and that's the case here. Ignoring WP:RECENT in this case will inevitably lead to WP:WEIGHT problems because of the tendency to overblow recent issue and make additions to an article way beyond what would be considered appropriate years from now. As for what happens "given time", maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong. But none of us has a crystal ball. Ward3001 (talk) 21:40, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Bah, edit conflict. They are not remotely similar. The rumours surrounding Arthur's birthplace are recorded in a 500-page book covering his entire life. This ambiguity rests with two sources which anecdotally mentioned the wrong hospital and one source which specifically discusses the challenges of researching Obama's life, with no conclusion of doubt that the commonly-accepted hospital is his true birthplace. Bigbluefish (talk) 21:23, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I would have to say that your argument is sound. I think that as soon as a biography on Obama comes out at least recognizing the controversy, than we can add a sentence or two. Great idea Bigbluefish.--Jojhutton (talk) 21:36, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I think the whole question here is whether or not errors in a few otherwise reliable sources outweighs the sourcing of other sources and whether or not we compound the errors of these otherwise reliable sources by giving their incorrect information presence in this article. Eclectix has presented two sources, one from UPI and another from about.com (is about.com reliable?), both of which say he was born in Queens Hospital, while most other sources say he was born in Kapiolani Medical Center[2][3][4][5] etc. There certainly is not any discussion in reliable sources about there being a controversy over which hospital he was born in. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 21:33, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

And the comparison between this article and other articles on wikipedia is a secondary discussion. I appreciate that Eclectix has provided a proposal, but it is hard to evaluate it without understanding exactly which source he refers to as [1new]. If the source supports his proposal, then we can look at these secondary discussions as a next step. If his source does not support his proposal, then there is no need to fight out these secondary discussions, right? Information in BLP articles start and end with reliable sourcing, so it'd really be great if we could focus the discussion to establishing whether this source is reliable or not. thanks, --guyzero | talk 21:32, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

As I understand it, [1new] is this Honolulu Advertiser article which says it's hard to find documentation of Obama's birth hospital, from the perspective of touristic interest. It is hard to find documentation of anyone's birth hospital; that doesn't affect what can be reported as fact. Bigbluefish (talk) 21:38, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I guess I'm confuzzled then as while that source does talk about the confidentiality/HIPA issues and how folks will get no response if they call a hospital and ask whether "So-And-So was born there?". This is true of all U.S. hospital-born people, not just Barack Obama. That source does not support Eclectix's proposal in any way other than innuendo, though. Perhaps he means a different source? --guyzero | talk 21:49, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

His initial comment cited a UPI article and an About.com article that say Obama was born in Queens Hospital. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 21:56, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Does anyone know what Obama's autobiography states? It could help clear up some of the mystery on exactly which hospital he was born in.--Jojhutton (talk) 22:15, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually I think that from 1999 onwards, HIPA of 1999 affects what can be reported as fact regarding birth events in the U.S. Prior to 1999, it seems that any member of the general public (or specifically a news reporter or news organization) could simply request a verified copy of a birth certificate for any public person claiming to have been born in the U.S. from the records office of the county in which the public person was claiming to have been born. After 1999, note that it becomes significantly easier for a person to make unverifiable claims about his or her birth circumstances (such as birth hospital), while withholding permission for the release of the independently verifiable birth information itself. I suspect it is not under contention, even here, that Obama for whatever reasons has chosen not to direct Honolulu County or a hospital to release his independently verifiable birth record. That is the difficulty mentioned explicitly in the first HA article ([1new]). This is the new reality (after 1999, under HIPA, for those public individuals who decline to give permission to release such records), the law that protects privacy makes information that has in the past been in prior recent history incontrovertible, now controvertible. I think that should be reflected in the Obama main article since Obama has chosen not to address the difficulty either by making a direct statement or by releasing the record indicating which hospital he was born in. The difficulty has not gone away. I respectfully suggest that these account for the reasons it has not gone away. I can't comment on why Obama might have chosen not to make a public statement himself, but he did not, so there is nothing attributable to him directly, and to be straightforward, the article for the sake of accuracy should reflect the most accurate statement out there in consideration of HIPA and Obama's lack of consent to release the definitive record. No reporter and no article cited here to date claims to have viewed the actual record showing the actual hospital of birth, and even if they did, they would be open to charges of party to violations of the HIPA. I also have not seen an official biographer for Obama cited yet (though it may be too early in Obama's term of presidential office to have an official biographer). I would welcome a more definitive article than what has been found so far through this collaborative effort. Such an article might be out there still but just not yet located by anyone to date. Under the circumstances, I do not feel it should be very surprising that a law such as HIPA would not have side effects (anticipated or otherwise) in other areas such as reporting, elections, job qualifications, etc. Eclectix (talk) 05:48, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I can't believe this didn't occur to me before. There is talk above of "bad data injection". Well one of the first edits to this article in July 2004 introduced Queen's as the birthplace without a source. This lasted until September 2006. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the most "reliable" sources mentioning Queen's stems from misinformation stemming from Wikipedia. Journalists have set many precedents for lifting seemingly inconsequential and probably correct details from Wikipedia. But absolutely, a hint as to the original source of the notion that he was born in Kapi'olani would be great. If it's in Dreams From My Father I'd call that a better source than the Star Bulletin, and would recommend it for the article. Bigbluefish (talk) 22:49, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Dreams doesn't mention his birth hospital. Just that he was born in Honolulu. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 22:51, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

(Responding to Bigbluefish comment of 22:49, 10 February 2009 (UTC)) This is exactly one of the things that drew me here to begin with(!). I wanted to find out the definitive attribution, if any, attached to the Queen's info and compare with other contradictory sources. Now I want to find out the definitive attribution, if any, attached to the Kapo'aliani info. So far, it seems both are not irrefutably from either Barack Obama or anyone in his family. So the only thing that definitively prevents the cycle from recurring is to back off in the main article from the specificity (or mention that it is from third parties only, such as the Congressman or the half sister). Wiki is not going to help matters if it keeps flipflopping based on less than strong secondary sources. Given the controversy (OK, given the thing that shall not be mentioned here) concerning Obama's birthplace, people will continue to come here unless and until a definitive reference is found. And they will continue to be misled that something is established fact if Wiki flipflops and presents non-definitive references, shorn of any hint of controversy, as definitive. That should be self-evident. Whatever Wiki policy existed in 2004 until the present along with however well or poorly it was followed, has not helped avoid the conflicts within Wiki itself and has not helped the general public readership when people go to wiki for facts and only see less-than-facts presented as facts, constricted by policy to do so even as it does not avoid the core problem that Wiki can be used to accelerate bad data injection, including right here and now. Eclectix (talk) 02:46, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

At this point, you're just beating a dead horse. We have word straight from the man himself as to which hospital he was born in. At this point, you're just beating a dead horse. We have word straight from the man himself as to which hospital he was born in. One of your sources is rife with inaccuracies, while the other is an unattributed election night bio, likely drawing from the same inaccurate sources. So your original attempt here, which I believe was to insert the word allegedly into the article to convey the (in your opinion) ambiguity about Obama's place of birth, has fallen with a decided *THUD*. Time to put this section out of its misery and call it a day, eh? Tarc (talk) 03:24, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

No, it's not straight from the man himself, which illustrates the continuing confusion. It's the word straight from Neil Abercrombie. Did you read the article? But if you dismiss it based on your premise, you've dismissed it on a false premise. Everyone should be more careful to see what these articles explicitly say and what these articles do not explicitly say. Obama did not appear at the Honolulu dinner. Abercrombie did. For that matter, Obama has an entire press room and he never had to write Abercrombie a letter to begin with-- the White House press room is a short walk from the Oval Office and an announcement can be done directly without bothering anyone else. So your reasoning is rife with assumptions, while the article contains no words directly from Obama at all. To allege is to assert to be true. Abercrombie asserted that Obama wrote him a letter stating where he was born. Equivalently, Abercrombie alleged, so the choice of "allege" remains to be challenged successfully. No THUD, decided or otherwise. Eclectix (talk) 06:20, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it a decided *THUD*, it did, after all, bring out the source of Abercrombie reading Obama's letter saying he was born in Kapi'olani... Perhaps more of a *clunk*. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 03:44, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Thought y'all might find this interesting [6]: 'More than 700 attended the recent centennial dinner at the Hawai'i Convention Center, marking 100 years of pediatric excellence at Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children and its predecessor, Kauikeolani Children's Hospital. When event co-chair Michael O'Malley asked for a hand count on who "was born at, had a child born at, or knows someone who was born at" Kapi'olani, nearly every hand in the house was proudly aloft. Congressman Neil Abercrombie read a letter from President Obama, who set the record straight about his origins: "Kapi'olani is the place of my birth."' thanks, --guyzero | talk 00:58, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

You're brilliant. That settles it for me. I also propose that this source replaces the Star Bulletin. Then we have a reliable quote of an unchallenged self-identification and also the reliable biographical interest piece from the WaPo. And we can end this debate about verification. This is a path directly back to a statement by the man himself. Any "ambiguity" from the tourism article in the Advertiser would be completely synthesised weight. Bigbluefish (talk) 01:06, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

For the sake of accuracy, neither article quotes Obama himself. They both quote Congressman Neil Abercrombie, who attributes the statement to a letter he received from Obama. Note that the controversy is explicitly acknowledged in the first article which reads "Settling the question once and for all, he states that..." (and which incidentally is an interpretation of the writer). It is interesting to speculate if the HA received some heat from the [1new] article and sent an inquiry to Obama, and whether instead of responding directly, Obama (interestingly, given the "question" surrounding his birth) chose to use an intermediary to respond instead of responding directly. I think this and the HA article should be added to the reference list in the main article. I think this information represents an improvement over the main page as it currently exists, because the main page has no source attributions for the information at all. Eclectix (talk) 01:37, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, let me help gather up the empty tea cups. Let's do this again sometime. ↜Just me, here, now … 01:11, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

For bonus kicks, here's an article dedicated to the event in question, with a slightly longer quote from Obama. Bigbluefish (talk) 01:18, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, maybe scratch that; it's in a user submitted section. Probably better with the shorter one authored by a paid columnist. Bigbluefish (talk) 01:21, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Is about.com a reliable source for Barack Obama's biography?

Bobblehead asks (rhetorically I would guess) if about.com is a reliable source. Well, I would have to say no as far as a source for Barack Obama. The article in question has the following blatant errors and/or outdated information - and quite possibly others:

"Barack Hussein OBAMA Sr. and Stanley Ann DUNHAM were married in 1960 in Hawaii". INCORRECT: they were married in 1961.
"...and had the following children: 1 i. Barack Hussein OBAMA, Jr." INCORRECT: his name is not "Jr."
"When Barack Obama was two years old, his parents divorced and his father moved to Connecticut to continue his education before returning to Kenya." INCORRECT: Ask anyone who went to Harvard or Yale, which one is in Connecticut. Hint: not Harvard.
"Four years later she sent him back to the United States to live with his maternal grandmother." INCORRECT: It was to both of his maternal grandparents.
"Barack Obama graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he met his future wife, Michelle Robinson." INCORRECT: They met at Sidley Austin, not at Harvard. They were not at Harvard Law at the same time.
"Hussein Onyango OBAMA had several wives. His first wife was Helima, with whom he had no children." INCORRECT: (?) I have no idea who Helima is - we do not have RS supporting this name.
"Second, he [Onyango] married Akuma and they had the following children: i. Sarah OBAMA" INCORRECT: Sarah was Onyango's third wife, not his daughter.
"... iii. Auma OBAMA " INCORRECT: Auma was Onyango's granddaughter, Barack Sr.'s daughter, not Barack Sr.'s sister.
"Madelyn Lee PAYNE was born in 1922 in Wichita, Kansas. She currently lives in Oahu, Hawaii." INCORRECT: She died in November.
"Stanley Ann DUNHAM was born on 27 November 1942" INCORRECT: She was born on November 29
"...in Wichita, Kansas" INCORRECT: it was Fort Leavenworth, not Wichita.

So, please give me a break - to claim that this about.com article is any way a reliable source for a detail such as his birthplace being "Queen's Hospital" is laughable - this is an unsourced piece that is rife with error, and it is utterly unreasonable to rely on it. The UPI piece is an election-night bio sketch, unsigned, and with no evidence of in-depth research, so I would guess that it gleaned its details from other published sources, but without any investigation. David Maraniss, while certainly not infallible, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist whose piece is in-depth and appears to be well-researched, and is published in a newspaper with some regard for accuracy and multiple sourcing. I think there is nothing more to say on this matter, and to continue to pursue it is disruptive. Tvoz/talk 01:32, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Brilliant analysis. All seems somewhat in vain though now there is a source attributing a statement about his birth hospital to Obama though. Bigbluefish (talk) 02:07, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. You're right, but in my experience here, absurd claims never really go away, they just hide under a rock, so I wanted this to be in the archive to be pointed to the next time it comes up, which I don't doubt it will. Tvoz/talk 02:30, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Tvoz rocks. About.com is a horrible source for just about anything. User submitted content that does not have any real oversight or fact checking = unreliable source, even though About likes to label some of their contributers as "experts." I have no feel for how often about.com goes to WP:RSN, but I bet they'd appreciate the above as an example of why about.com isn't reliable. --guyzero | talk 04:19, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not interested in defending about.com ... BUT just to mention (since we're being so discriminating about facts here):

1. While reliable sources certainly say BHO Sr. and Ann were married in '61, pinpointed dating and official documentation of this event remain problematic.

2. Many reliable sources (e/g the NYT, Britannica) render Barack Obama "junior"...

4. Since Obama was sent to live with his grandmother along with his grandfather, the (slightly sexist) rendering being criticized remains true nonethless...

7. Unless the about.com article claims to be up to date, its failure to mention Madelyn Payne Dunham's death shouldn't really be held against it, no?

↜Just me, here, now … 02:15, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Someone needs to tell Eclectix that it is now resolved:[7] --Bobblehead ^(rants) 02:18, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

You mean you think something is actually resolved? That would be refreshing. Tvoz/talk 02:30, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Should any further concerns WRT Obama's birth be moved to the "Citizenship conspiracy theories" article's talkpage? ↜Just me, here, now … 02:39, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

No need to move them. Just close 'em and note WP:FRINGE or ignore them. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 02:43, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

On this issue, I would agree that About.com is not as reliable as others. Also I might add that the issue of which hospital he was born in seems also to be resolved. I was surprised that the discussion was allowed to progress, but in the end I hope that we all got what we wanted to say out.--Jojhutton (talk) 04:25, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Question, please answer

Before we even spend any more time on this, can we PLEASE see a list of reliable sources that say his Hawaii birth certificate is NOT valid, or reliable mainstream sources that say he's not a natural born citizen? This talk page is not the place to discuss the controversy itself, but simply it's inclusion or lack of here. Nothing else. rootology (C)(T) 15:55, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Dude, this is about whether his birth hospital is named in this article and whether it is possible that he was actually born in the Queen's Medical Centre, Honolulu. At least read the opening post in a discussion. I suggest you delete this off-topic section and my reply, but it's not quite clear cut for me to do so uninvited. Bigbluefish (talk) 17:00, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I think we need to find a couple very reliable sources that say that there is some conspiracy involved. That there is some big issue over the different hospitals. For all we know, those few sources that name a different hospital, could have gotten it wrong. So, before we can say there is any problem, we need very reliable sources that say there is a conspiracy here, and even more very reliable sources that mention that the other hospital, not named in this article, is the real one and not a simple mistake on the reporter's part. That is the bigger issue here. Brothejr (talk) 21:16, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

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

first president born outside continental US

The article was just edited to say that Obama is the first president born outside the continental U.S. This may not be entirely true however, since several of the first Presidents were born in the American colonies, not in the United States. Tad Lincoln (talk) 01:14, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh Geez. Here come's another hair-splitting semantic debate. Was the colony of Virginia the same place as the state of Virginia? Geographically, yes. Politically, who knows?1?! Are there more important things to discuss? Yes. Ward3001 (talk) 01:24, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Ward, it doesn't belong in the lede in any case. Dayewalker (talk) 01:27, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I would say, interesting twist on the words "United States", but sadly Tad Lincoln, your suggestion is not going to "cut the mustard".--Jojhutton (talk) 02:22, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Not really a "twist". It's a fact, several other presidents were not born in the United States. The editor who reverted that edit clearly agreed with me. Tad Lincoln (talk) 02:27, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Ward, this is just another hairsplitting event. Brothejr (talk) 10:14, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Not worthy of the biography. Don´t really think the trivia is particularly noteworthy to his biography. The whole part could be excised, but I´m indifferent.Die4Dixie (talk) 21:29, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Various proposals

Dead soldiers

did not lead to viable proposal for article content

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

How many soldiers died under the Obama administration in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why isn't this data in the article? Under Bush it was known and news agency almost every day reported this growing number. Pikacsu (talk) 00:20, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to research the matter. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 00:32, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

And hold your horses. He's been in office just over two weeks. Let the news happen before we start reporting it here. Ward3001 (talk) 00:34, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

There has been a whirlwind of activity since the 20th (hard to believe it was just 18 days since he took office) and there are only so many stories that get front-page coverage. I'm sure there are sites that keep a meticulous count. It's important to keep in mind that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, especially the latter, were seen as "Bush's wars". As time wears on, if Obama fails to take the action that he promised, they will become "Obama's wars", just as surely as LBJ's Vietnam War became Nixon's. It's also important to keep in mind that Obama is the commander-in-chief, and is duty-bound to conduct those wars properly and in a way that he takes to be in America's best interests - and an immediate withdrawal likely does not qualify as such. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 00:40, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

At what point would such statistics be germane to this article? Some sort of guidance should be given so as to avoid edit wars. SMP0328. (talk) 02:24, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Unless he personally takes his Uzi to Iraq or Afghanistan and starts shooting enemy soldiers, I don't see where it has much to do with his bio - and if it's in Dubya's bio, maybe it shouldn't be there either. Its more proper place, other than the obvious (articles on the wars themselves), would be in the article on the Obama administration. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 02:34, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable, but trying to get that material out of the George W. Bush article would likely be like pulling teeth. At a certain point that material will have to be added to this article, if it's still in the other article. Otherwise, there will be the appearance of a cross-article POV push. SMP0328. (talk) 02:41, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

And that would be a fair cop. I haven't spent much time on the Bush articles, as I like to avoid nauseating subjects. So I must ask, is there a separate article about the Bush administration? If so, the first step might be to discuss moving that material from the one to the other, and point out that what's good for the goose is good for the gander, politically speaking. In short, it should either be in both places, or neither. It might also be useful to check the other Presidential bios and see which of them, if any, discuss the casualty counts in their articles (if so, obviously Lincoln's and FDR's would be horrific by comparison with Dubya's). Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 02:54, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Ridiculous. It is overly simplistic and quite frankly a bit intellectually dishonest to state that if the citation of soldier deaths appears in one president's article, then it must appear in anther's. The facts at this time are that the previous president presided over a war, a very politically unpopular one like it or not. The reporting of casualties under that administration became a widely reported and notable event, much as Vietnam casualties were a notable event under Johnson and Nixon. If reliable sources begin to make a notable issue of soldier casualties under the Obama administration, then by all means it can and will be added to the article. Dunno if I'd count on that occurring though, as the war is in all likelihood winding down, and as troops are withdrawn, the opportunity for casualties will diminish. But this "if there, then here also" is pure bunk. Tarc (talk) 03:00, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

What would be even more itellectually dishonest not to acknowledge that it will be due to media biases rather than wind downs that those figures won´t be as noted ;)Die4Dixie (talk) 03:09, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't know that the so-called "liberal media" in general harped so much on American casualty counts on a daily basis, but rather when it was "newsworthy", such as when a round-number milestone was reached or when a particularly fierce battle or bombing occurred. I do know that the McLaughlin Group (which I have not watched lately) used to mention the war casualties thus far, every week, faithfully - and I wouldn't label John McLaughlin a liberal. As to whether it belongs in the Obama article - Tarc makes a good point that reliable sources talked about it under Bush, and maybe less so under Obama. I wonder, though, if the conservative media would take up the slack and start emphasizing the body counts? I doubt it, because then they would go down the slippery slope of implicitly criticizing the war that they championed. A vaguely similar situation occurred in the Civil War, when Mathew Brady held his exhibition, "The Dead of Antietam". War proponents hated it, because it de-romanticized the war. That's why hawks don't like to talk about body counts. So now we have the dilemma that the "liberal" media will probably cut Obama more slack (at least for awhile) and the conservative media probably won't talk much about the body count either. Thus leaving a sparseness of reliable sources to justify making it "notable" for the Obama article. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 03:37, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I imagine that Kieth Olbermann won´t say to much about the hunt for ~~Obama~~ Osama either, but that´s just my guess ;).173.28.159.111 (talk) 03:52, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

"The hunt for Obama"? You don't have to hunt very far. I counted them at the checkout lane today. He's on more magazine covers than Jessica Simpson is. Somewhere, John McCain, who ran an ad comparing Obama's celeb status to tabloid fodder like Paris Hilton, must be doing the "Told ya so" dance. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 04:14, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Threats against Obama

proposal considered and rejected

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

The newest threat: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/10/obama.threat/index.html There should be a section for this and other threats mentioned in the cnn article. Pikacsu (talk) 15:03, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

No there shouldn't. All presidents have faced threats, whether explicit or implicit. This is a biography of Obama's entire life, of which this sort of thing is insignificant. If the guy actually shot at Obama you'd have a case, but otherwise this is a non-starter. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:08, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Pikacsu, please stop creating sections on this talk page about recent trivial events. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a newspaper that should scoop every minor event, innuendo, rumor, or fringe theory and write about it the same day it happens. You have a single purpose account and have created such sections repeatedly, most of which have been deleted or ignored. You have been warned about this several times on your talk page, and it's getting very tiresome. So I raise the issue here for everyone to see because apparently you ignored the messages on your talk page. Please don't continue to create new sections on this page that are not legitimate issues worthy of an encyclopedia. Ward3001 (talk) 15:34, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, I understand, so you're waiting for an assassination attempt. Pikacsu (talk) 15:53, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Threats would be more appropriate for the Presidency of Barack Obama article. Random threats against Obama are going to happen periodically, but they don't belong in this specific article unless they become more than just a plot. It doesn't mean they don't belong somewhere. After all, the assassination plots in Denver and Tennessee have articles about them. Granted, I wouldn't go nearly as far as to say this guy was making an assassination attempt on Obama. At this point all that is known is he drove up to one of the White House's barricades and admitted to having a rifle in his truck. For all we know he could have been out hunting over the weekend and just forgot to take the rifle out of his truck. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 16:05, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Also, we must keep in mind that there are hundreds of "attempts" on the president's life even if they never get reported or never get that close to him. The secrete service is continually investigating each attempt. Yet, unless the person actually makes a valid and very public attempt on his life, then we would not report it. Also, please keep in mind that Wikipedia is not here to continually report every new thing that pops up on the news. Brothejr (talk) 16:09, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

What is Obama's IQ?

did not lead to viable proposal for article content

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Is it public? Or they hide it, because it's too low, or for another reason? I think that we should know it... And this is an inportant data for the bio Pikacsu (talk) 19:15, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

No, it's trivial and doesn't deserve any mention. Grsz¹¹ 19:17, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

So by this you say that intelligence doesn't important for the presidency. Not bad. Pikacsu (talk) 19:19, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

No, I'm saying that this post, like most of yours here, are pointless. Grsz¹¹ 19:21, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

IQ is a feeble and elusive concept if you would bother to read about it. You will be hard pressed to find a commentator that supports it as a useful metric of a president's effectiveness. Bigbluefish (talk) 19:35, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

We don't include the other presidents' IQs, and like has been said above, it's completely and utterly pointless. --Josh Atkins ^{(talk - contribs)} 19:51, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

For full disclosure, I have opened a discussion about Pikacsu in relation to this article's probation at WP:ANI#Pikacsu. Bigbluefish (talk) 20:20, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Ref error

Does anyone have any idea what's wrong with reference #181? Bigbluefish (talk) 22:17, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Related question: What source does "Obama (2006)" refer to? I'm guessing it's Audacity of Hope, but whoever added this source needs to provide more detail per WP:CITE. Ward3001 (talk) 22:40, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

We're hitting the date convert pool too many times with the cite news template. If you remove the ABC source from the article, the error just shifts to the next source that uses the cite news template. I think you can only trigger #time something like 90 times per template or it goes sideways. Someone may have to go through the templates and convert the Date and accessdates from YYYY-MM-DD to MONTH DAY, YEAR. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 22:55, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Ward3001, see WP:CITESHORT for an explanation of what Obama (2006) means. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 22:56, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Any way to fix the template? That's a serious limitation... unless that's intentional, for performance reasons. Wikidemon (talk) 23:07, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

They've been monkeying around with the cite templates and converting them to {{citation/core}}. One of the recent "fixes" was to start using {{citation/fixdate}} on the date and accessdate fields. There are currently five #time calls and I believe Wikipedia limits the number of #time calls for a given template to 90 or something like that... so if you consider there is the possible 10 #time calls per properly filled out cite template you can see that those #time calls go quickly. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 23:18, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Uh, ok - what is #time? Tvoz/talk 23:45, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

But further, why would the error message pop up in just that one footnote? I tried changing the format of a couple of dates above it in cite news and it didn't change anything. Tvoz/talk 23:53, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Looks like they "fixed" the problem for now. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 02:14, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

ANI

I have opened an ANI discussion and an seeking community input.[8]. Die4Dixie (talk) 22:18, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Obama recently mistated law regarding terror trial rights?

We need a reliable source to back this up. These guys cite Washington Times which is "ok", but I'd like to see a more respected source. Anyone else hear about this: (read article here). 216.153.214.89 (talk) 04:52, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

No, blogs are never acceptable as reliable sources. Grsz¹¹ 04:58, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

In BLPs, yes. In some very specialized cases with very specialized "blogs", they can be acceptable--but definitely not on a BLP. Another thing to be watchful of is to not blanket against "blog" formatted news--like ABC News does a lot of this now, along with CNN and the NY Times, or Politico, and those are OK. But this one, here? It's some random blog site that "anyone" could have put together. rootology (C)(T) 05:10, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

It seems to be a theme with Obama, but not quite notable enough just yet.--Jojhutton (talk) 05:28, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

We're supposed to be discussing how to improve the article, not what we think of Obama's positions. Thanks. Tvoz/talk 06:00, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I am asking for help in verifying the refered to "error" by Obama. I am not suggesting we use American Thinker, nor even Washington Times as our source. However, AT refers to and links to WT which asserts this error. WT is "almost" acceptable to me as a source, but I want a better one. Anyone with Lexis-Nexis access or perhaps anyone find a better web source? 216.153.214.89 (talk) 06:07, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I just looked on Lexis-Nexis. There was only one thing that appeared to be related to this. It is from the Washington post, is an editorial, and does not provide details or explain precisely what errors he has supposedly made. Not very reliable if you ask me. Tad Lincoln (talk) 07:18, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

←IN any event, I question whether this matter would be notable enough for this main biography of Obama - perhaps there could be a place for it in the Presidency of Barack Obama article, but that depends on the kind of sourcing found and the relative weight compared to the rest of the piece. Tvoz/talk 09:38, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Obama is NOT a muslim, please read below

I am dismayed that Wikipedia editors have allowed 1) to indicate that Obama is a Muslim and 2) they have locked the page, so it cannot be corrected!

Obama has declared publicly and in many occasions that he is Christian and not a Muslim. Colin Powell confirmed this in his endorsement as well.

Please correct this obvious mistake ASAP. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Faweekee (talk • contribs) 22:58, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Cool down. The article is locked because of high IP vandalism but it doesn't prevent registered users to add nonsense as one did here [9] and was quickly reverted.--The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 23:13, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Disambiguation

This article is under the "Big O" disambiguation page? Really? I mean....really? I have never heard any source whatsoever call Obama the "Big O."--Ryudo (talk) 10:01, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting that. Someone must have just been having some fun on the disambiguation page. I'll check it out and probably remove the link.Wikidemon (talk) 17:59, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Multiple unexplained redirections to Barack Obama

WHY? Both "Barack" and "Obama" redirects to this article directly. So both surname and even the first name! Just a quick try shows that this isn't true for the last president: "George" or "Bush" doesn't redirects to George W. Bush rocks Can somebody give me a clue? I would redirect them to the disambiguation page. Pikacsu (talk) 23:10, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

In the English language, "George" is an extremely common name, and "bush" is most often associated with plant-life, not the former Presidents. "Barack" and "Obama" on the other hand are almost universally associated with the current President. In cases like that, it makes sense to have them redirect to this article instead of disambiguation. --Good Damon 23:18, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you should read WP:Redirect, but the short form is that in cases where there is a primary usage of a term where that term is not the name of the article, then a redirect is used. In the case of Obama, there was a discussion at Talk:Obama (disambiguation) about whether it should be a redirect or a dab page back in 2007 and it seems redirect won out there. There was also a discussion on Talk:Barack_(brandy) about whether that article should be move to Barack or remain a redirect here and it seems there was no consensus on moving Barack (brandy) over the redirect. As far as why George and Bush are not redirects to the article on George W. Bush, I can think of a couple reasons why George isn't. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 23:30, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I presume you were replying to Pikacsu, not me? --Good Damon 23:50, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually both names are not very common. Redirects to this article seems to be OK. By the way, if you just type in Nixon, it will take you to Richard Nixon's article, so there is precident for this particular redirect.--Jojhutton (talk) 00:17, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

And you are correct, GoodDamon.;) My comment was aimed at Pikacsu. :) --Bobblehead ^(rants) 00:42, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Besides it saves having to type both names and/or learn to spell both names for that matter (n'yuk n'yuk)Natwebb (talk) 07:15, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

occupation section of sidebar

So we've got community organizer, lawyer, and author... How about President? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.111.183.10 (talk) 18:45, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Look right under his photo in the infobox. Ward3001 (talk) 18:58, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Columbia University Error

After 2 years at Occidental, Barack transferred to Columbia College in Chicago, not Columbia University in New York. [10] JackMacy (talk) 21:47, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, you made me look :(. The answer is no. Even your source doesn't say that. Sigh... Bigbluefish (talk) 23:42, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

JackMacy is confusing Columbia College, a sub-school of Columbia University, New York (which is the school Obama DID go to) with the very different Columbia College, and independent school in Chicago. There are several other Columbia Colleges out there, and Obama most certainly attended the one in New York. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:23, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Obama's picture

Why is his picture not centered? His face is off to the right, why is this? Do we not have a better one lol? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Felliph3 (talk • contribs) 01:56, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

It's his official presidential photo, and it's free. Those are two excellent reasons to keep it in the infobox. It's probably not centered so the flag can be seen behind him. His official photo may be replaced some day, so then it can change. Ward3001 (talk) 02:06, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Allegations of vote fraud

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

this is not a forum for general griping about politics or about what's wrong with Wikipedia.

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Wikidemon (talk) 02:38, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

The liberal bias reeks here, by no piece on this subject being seen herein. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.114.8.82 (talk) 10:56, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Obama received $800,000 in contributions from ACORN, no?[11][12] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.114.8.82 (talk) 11:03, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

ACORN was found to have extreme irregularities in its voter registration process in hundreds of cases, all in favor of Obama, so it is a pertinent issue —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.114.8.82 (talk) 12:06, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I am not a pro editor and this is not a rant, just a topic posed for discussion and possible developing, fully within the rules, you bias liberals (and dinosaur Republicans) can stop your idiotic deleting twitches. Develop a proper article on this fully sourced or don't go away mad just go away if you can't do anything constructive!

ACORN had 400,000 forms that were rejected for various reasons, including duplications, incomplete forms, and fraudulent registrations:[13]

ACORN-submitted registrations in San Diego County, California had a rejection rate of 17 percent for all errors, compared to less than five percent for voter drives by other organizations, according to county officials[14][15] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.114.8.82 (talk) 12:31, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Readding my post which was removed by User:71.114.8.82. Im sorry but it was a rant and you attacked editors by claiming they were "Stupid liberals". If you wish to see something mentioned or added to the article please state your case providing reliable sources and explain in a calm way why you think its inclusion is justified. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:16, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Im glad you made a change to your original post however in future please dont remove other editors posts and you should strike out your comments if you change your mind rather than simply remove previous made comments. Now on the issue of ACORN, if this was justified to be included anywhere it would not be on this article but on United States presidential election, 2008. Please look at that article and ask on there for something to be mentioned about ACORN if its not, hopefully in a more balanced way and without attacking people. Thanks BritishWatcher (talk) 12:38, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

If you would now look, now that I had a chance to get it posted before having my talk section being deleted (in 3 minutes!) it is now sourced, linked above for you pro editors to do your buz, please and thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.114.8.82 (talk) 12:43, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

FYI User [Brothejr] is deleting talk space without discussion and causing the contention, 4 already in one hour, "he" should be blocked. "He" initiated the bias by deleting talk. The [ACORN] issue has new information just comming out and that is why it is here now in present time. If you pro editors don't do an article "I" will and I'm certain it will be a long drawn out food fight. So, I think I'm trying to be nice, I even tried to be ballancing and comment on republicans as well... no?

Now all the margins are trashed from restoring from copy! What a joke!

You've forgotten the Jews and Bill Ayers helping out. But seriously, get your head out of your ass. ACORN didn't steal the election for Obama. And while we're on it, Bush did win Florida... by a small margin of votes. Sceptre ^(talk) 13:22, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

What is a "dinosaur republican"?Die4Dixie (talk) 21:02, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Nevermeind, I guess he meant "RHINOs", and got his parties confused.Die4Dixie (talk) 21:19, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

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

Nothing meaningful - fringey BLP issues. Nothing constructive coming.

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

All the pointless name calling aside, this story most certainly has legs and is certainly current, seeing how Obama and admins seem to have an overactive interest in gerrymandered votes like these ACORN votes, immigrant votes, seeing how it is big news of late that Obama and staff attempted to move the 2010 census under whitehouse control with little fanfair from Republicans or Dems[16] At the very least this affair is a clear compound scandal of note in conflict of interest. Cc2po (talk) 01:49, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Get some reliable sources and I promise I will help you add it to his Presidency page, but it is not needed here. Blogs do not qualify on that page either. Check out WP:RS for some tips on what acceptable sourcing is.Die4Dixie (talk) 02:31, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

If there is a reliable source out there you can find it. So instead of feeding what appears to be a troll go and search and proof the "others" wrong. Till then, just hold back and just work on it quietly. Everything else seems like soap to me and this thread is closed if you didn't notice.--The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 03:05, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Quod scripsi, scripsi. If you do´not like the comments, do not look at them. I do not know what you are talking about or where "proofing" came from. In fact, to whom are you directing your comments and what the hell are you talking about?Die4Dixie (talk) 03:18, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

If you don't like the comments don't reply to them. If you don't understand them don't reply either. And what part of "Please do not modify it." and "Subsequent comments should be made in a new section." don't you get? No, please don't tell me. Thanks. BTW, nice fake Latin :)) . Have a nice day, --The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 03:51, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I rather imagine my Latin is good enough to read the Vulgate. Anyone can put that shit anywhere. The comment was under it. Maybe you should brush up on your own Latin. I may be a redneck, but a redneck with a classical education.Die4Dixie (talk) 04:03, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Just a note: any irregularities about the election belong in the election article, not the biography. This whole "ACORN stole the election" gripe is a re-hashing of the "Bush stole Florida" arguments from a conservative/Republican perspective, but with a lot less traction and a hell of a lot more unbelievable. For one, the "ACORN is evil" meme was pretty much started by McCain playing party politics (which was regrettable; McCain is normally a decent human being). Secondly, it's arguable that the ACORN additions and the electoral roll removals pretty much cancelled out. Finally, Obama won the popular vote by nine and a half million votes. It's just impossible for an organisation like ACORN, even if every single member was corruptively Democratic, to pull off something like that. Sceptre ^(talk) 04:14, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

The two situations are barely comparable. Bush lost the popular vote and "won" the electoral vote - at least he prevailed in the election - by legal process through the intervention of the Supreme Court in the political process that in the view of many legal scholars seriously hurt the credibility of the Court. There are always people trying to tilt the balance of election through any means possible, but there was no credible allegation that Bush operatives "stole" the election in any literal way - both sides resorted to court challenges and Bush's side prevailed. The event is highly notable, sourceable, etc. By contrast, Obama won the most recent election in a near landslide. The claim here, which is not credible and seems to be a rehash of off-wiki partisan nonsense that is equal parts populist conspiracy theory and cynical propaganda, is that ACORN and Obama actually rigged the election. But Obama won in a near landslide. If even the nuttiest of the theories were true, he still would have won. There is no significant legal challenge, no major legal issue, and nothing at all to the story. The agitating here seems to be borderline trolling, a disgruntled IP editor claiming in at least two articles that Wikipdia is a liberal whitewash. These days, anytime I see a new thread in a BLP with words like "whitewash" or "hagiography" I tune out. Nothing good ever comes of such threads. Wikidemon (talk) 04:41, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. This is why I suggested reliable sources and the appropriate arcticle.Die4Dixie (talk) 04:17, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Indeed; WP:REDFLAG seems to be useful here. Mind you, the lunatics are the most vocal; sadly, of the criticism of Obama we see, about ten percent is legitimate (such as dissent against the stimulus), while the other ninety is conservative butthurt (waah, ACORN! waah, birth certificate! waah, Bill Ayers! waah, Rev. Wright!) Sceptre ^(talk) 04:24, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry folks. I removed the wrong section. Sorry for the level of antagonism and lack of collegial tone on my part. I´ll be back tomorrow when I hope I will feel less contrary.Die4Dixie (talk) 05:13, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Further Sourcing and text to that:

Maricopa County Arizona is a microcosm, analogues to how the influx of illegal aliens is causing huge population increases raising serious questions about their nefarious, rising influence on our elections and the fairness, legality and constitutionality thereof as assessed by prime-time television CNN anchor Lou Dobbs upon his analysis of the latest census figures ramifications. This is the case because in Maricopa County, much like other counties in the United States population not citizenship determines voting districts. And there's clear evidence that both illegal and legal aliens are replacing long time residence and partisans are using people that can't vote as "filler people" to fill up the extra people needed to make up a given district along with the people that favor their political party. Such is particularly the case because the census figures don't distinguish the difference between legal and illegal aliens and most of the illegals are coming across the border from Mexico who is actively investing in and interfering in our electoral process, overwhelmingly in favor of Democrats[17][18]

Poles in Mexico indicate that the majority favored Obama and the election results showed clearly that such "minority" voters such as "Hispanic" and "African American" voters overwhelmingly voted for him and clearly won the election for ObamaUnited States presidential election, 2008 [19]

I rarely point out spelling errors, but the implied image of Juan Stanley Garciaski is just too powerful to ignore. PhGustaf (talk) 18:21, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Further, before anyone else makes any more "conspiratorial" accusations on conspired border breakdowns or Lou Dobbs and that this is just a populist hallucination, view it and weep, Vicente Fox the towering figure of power in Mexico himself advocating the North American Union (NAU):[20]

These herein set forth factual, historical occurrences and how such have been and continue to be used nefariously to gain unfair advantages in local and national elections evokes serious concerns upon the the quid pro quo between ACORN the very largest of all such organizations and Obama and how it relates to this situation and constitutes a serious and in his case continuing conflict of interest in voter fraud, considering his latest actions of usurping unconstitutional power over the census process.

Further, ACORN is only one of these organizations involving themselves with this who mostly gerrymander for Democrats, another example of this would be the "Community Voter Registration Project" that involves itself with this in Virginia and other states having similar aims of registering Democrats. Obama was involved with ACORN and was a principle therein and knew full well what ACORN was doing so this is clear and deliberate corruption for political gain and the volume of this corruption with all these "Voter Registration" groups, and the Democratic Party's continual activities to harass efforts to close the border thereto, and the large numbers of illegals involved certainly could have toppled and has toppled this election to Obama's favor. Note that ACORN is under FBI investigation for this voter fraud[[21]][22][23][24][25]

(I am still sourcing, so please do not delete in minutes like my last post, however there is plenty enough sourcing for the time being to hold this article as is for discussion for now). Cc2po (talk) 18:09, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Um, you do know this is a biography on Obama and not ACORN? Plus, most of those sources fail WP:RS as we do not accept blogs, youtube.come, and editorials as reliable sources. Unless there is some very reliable and verifiable that pins Obama to some election victory, then it cannot go in this article. Maybe a slight mention in the presidential elections article, but not here. Brothejr (talk) 18:19, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Edit: Oh yea also I forgot to mention that the information cannot be synthesized nor can it be original research. The very reliable sources has to explicitly say that "Barack Obama did this..." If the article does not say that and makes no mention that Obama committed electoral fraud, then it would be considered synthesis and original research to imply so. Brothejr (talk) 18:28, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

This discussion has already been closed multiple times, and is unlikely to lead to a change in article content. The only reason to keep it here at all instead of deleting it, as was done when the IP editor trolled elsewhere, is to preserve a record so people can read an explanation for why it is rejected. So please don't use this talk page as a WP:SANDBOX for accumulating sources - you can use your user space, or your local computer for that. It's getting long and messy so I suggest leaving it open for a couple hours so anyone who wants can read it, then collapsing this along with the rest of the discussion. Wikidemon (talk) 18:27, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

cc2po's position is sound. Wikipedia makes it very clear that in extraordinary cases as certainly exists here exceptions to its policy apply and this is a grand fraud committed by Obama as well as his admins including his media conspirators at the Bilderberg meeting he attended in Chantilly Virginia or other of his many associates, it goes directly to his personal character as his personal actions are involved therefor it is certainly current to this particular page: "Obama" biography. I have spent the last six hours searching sourcing on this and found several thousand sources virtually identical to the documentation that cc2po proffers, conversely I have found zero articles in the mainstream media that can be sourced here according to Wikipedia's "liberal" rules as asserted in the allegations at issue in the titling of this article. It is clear that the liberal bias is a fact both in the mainstream press and here. Headliner anchorman Dobbs is there speaking at length on it on his 7pm EST news broadcast saying exactly what cc2po wrote so I see no "synthesis" or original research on cc2po's part as he kept it almost to verbatim quotations and it is unlikely it is a fraud or Dobbs would be on it like flies on you know what along with CNN. Stop the bureaucratic liberal bias needling of the authors and deleting maliciously. Stop making excuses for this fraud Obama, there is no excuse for him. Further, why does a junior politician manage to make president? Ask yourselves that! Self-styled affirmative action by media and others clearly acting conspirators. If ever there was a conspiracy with evidence to prove it it is looking you right in the face here. I support a section herein on cc2po's contributions.Ratttso (talk) 05:00, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

This section will bring nothing productive to this talk page, and I'm closing it accordingly. Reopening it can be considered in violation of this article's probation and can result in actions described there. Grsz¹¹ 05:04, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Stimulus Presidency

Shouldn't the summary mention briefly that he inherited the subprime crisis and has worked to pass the stimulus bill through congress? Agree or disagree, it's likely to be one of the earliest defining actions of his presidency. Could wait until Tuesday until it becomes law, but it definitely should be mentioned IMO. -137.222.114.243 (talk) 19:50, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Maybe see the page dedicated to his presidency.Die4Dixie (talk) 20:59, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, mention of the passed stimulus is def. worthy of inclusion as it's the biggest thing he's passed in office. Not to mention that it's $800 billion.--Loodog (talk) 15:57, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

This would be the wrong article to talk about specific bills, unless they had some biographical relevance. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:29, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Then let's do something about the rescindment of the Mexico City Policy, the closure of Guantanamo and the executive order on presidential records. Seriously, all of these things combine to define the type of president Obama has been so far, which is a defining part of his biography. As for the stimulus bill, it's huge. I would guess it will define his presidency at least half as much as the New Deal did FDR. If it's exceptionally successful or unsuccessful, make that more. My reluctance to get stuck into editing this section is that it's such a volatile area, but that shouldn't hold anyone back from keeping it current. The lack of mention of the stimulus bill is IMO currently a minor weight issue. Bigbluefish (talk) 17:32, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Photo caption issue

In the caption for File:Five_Presidents_2009.jpg, it says "Presidents...[list of the 5]." My issue is that at the time of the photograph (January 7, as currently noted in the caption), Obama was not yet president. I think we should note it by saying something like "then president-elect Barack Obama (since inaugurated)" to have accuracy in the caption. It might not be the clearest wording, but something along those lines. Mahalo. --Ali'i 15:07, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

It is his official presidential portrait, that's what the government says. The photo is in all government offices across the country. --DemocraplypseNow (talk) 18:12, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

No, no no... the picture in the Cultural and political image section. Not the official portrait. Someone else? Mahalo. --Ali'i 18:16, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I changed it to paraphrase the image description found over at the Commmons, where it notes the electoral state of both Bush and Obama at the time it was taken. Tarc (talk) 18:51, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Brevity in captions is far more important than long digressions into pedantic correctness. LotLE×talk 21:47, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

But I'd wager accuracy in an encyclopedia article (especially where it can be verified) trumps saving a few words. ;-) --Ali'i 22:31, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Captions are special (along with infobox fields). Verbiage that can be placed into main body often should be. LotLE×talk 22:34, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

If you want to edit it down, no one is preventing you. I just changed it so it would reflect, y'know, the facts. Relax. Tarc (talk) 01:52, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Fully lock this article, please.

Considering what you see when you Google Barack presently (2009-02-17 ~5:35 PM GMT), I would suggest fully locking the article to prevent further highly public vandalism. Apeiron (talk) 17:34, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't see what Google has to do with this article. Why lock it? Be more specific please.--Jojhutton (talk) 18:50, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Likely referring to the fact that that Google search is unfortunately reflecting the state of the article upon this edit, which was only up for 2 minutes. It is a stupidity of Google's web page caching, not much we can do about it here. Tarc (talk) 18:55, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Locking the article will not fix that. Only time will fix it. Periodically the Google search bot moves around the net scanning page after page to use in the search. This bot will sooner or later come back to scan the article again. Locking the article will not fix what is being shown in the Google search. Instead the best solution is to continue to monitor for vandalism and hope that the Google search bot scans a good copy and not one that has been vandalized. Brothejr (talk) 18:58, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if that was on purpose, or just luck on the part of the vandal. Is it possible to predict or influence the timing of the google spider?Wikidemon (talk) 19:19, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, it was just the timing of the search and the vandalism.--Jojhutton (talk) 19:21, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, wait a minute, as Wikidemon implies, intentional vandalism timing can lock the vandalism into Google searches for a relatively long time. I'd expect smart vandals to start adopting this technique. Tempshill (talk) 04:51, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Looking back at the article history, the page has been in a state of blanked vandalism for between 5 and 9 minutes in the last month. This means there's a maximum 0.2% chance of getting a vandalised page at any one time. The same applies to Google, except the sample is more granular. If this search result lasts on search results for two days, the next expected occurrence would be in about 27 years. Or if Google updated their refresh rate to 1 per hour, it would be a year until the next one - and it would only affect an hour's worth of searches. Considering Wikipedia's vulnerability to vandalism is well known, it's far more valuable to have a consistently good quality article maintained by a substantial pool of registered users. Bigbluefish (talk) 19:30, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

We've notified the Google search team about this and they've purged the cache for the page, but unfortunately it will take a while longer for the change to propagate.--Eloquence * 19:54, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for being on this, Erik. Bad PR of the political sort is not what we need right now. Avruch^T 23:58, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

This is precisely why I've always argued in favor of permanent or extremely long term semiprotection of this and all of the Obama subarticles (not full), and it brings into focus why something like flagged revisions makes sense. "Anyone can edit", unfortunately, too often means any asshole can edit. And we have a responsibility, I think, to prevent crap like that from representing the hard work that constructive editors do, at the high rate of pay we receive for our efforts. Tvoz/talk 02:35, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Not many people know that semi-protecton was implemented for the Bush article, back when Bush was in office. No protection would let in "idiot" vandalism, full protection would lock a lot of people out. This should be kept semi-protected for the same reason. Sceptre ^(talk) 04:57, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

This is a perfect example of why every page on Wikipedia should, also, be set NOCACHE for all search engines. rootology (C)(T) 05:18, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, in light of what happened to our #1 most visible BLP here, I've written Wikipedia:Search Engine NOCACHE by default proposal. Please weigh in there. If this BLP article ain't safe, none of them are. rootology (C)(T) 07:59, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Archive glitch

Resolved

What happened to the Archive pages at the top, they are all zeros??--Punkrocker27ka (talk) 05:22, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

The archives are back to normal, does anyone know what happened? --Punkrocker27ka (talk) 06:14, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I had a couple of notices that said "Server is having problems" during that time period

--Chaosdruid (talk) 07:01, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

See here for a fairly incomprehensible (to me, anyway) explanation - and now to fix any affected page. Tvoz/talk 07:13, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

It's all fixed now. rootology (C)(T) 07:22, 18 February 2009 (UTC)