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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 203.219.117.97 (talk) at 01:22, 4 November 2008. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Template:Community article probation

Featured articleBarack Obama is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on November 4, 2008.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
August 12, 2004Featured article candidatePromoted
August 18, 2004Today's featured articleMain Page
January 23, 2007Featured article reviewKept
July 26, 2007Featured article reviewKept
April 15, 2008Featured article reviewKept
September 19, 2008Featured article reviewKept
Current status: Featured article

Template:Pbneutral

TFA heads up

FYI - this article is going to be tomorrow's featured article (Nov 4). Per the compromise noted in the log, I've upped the FA protection level to full/cascading, for 25 hours. Raul654 (talk) 23:49, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That, uh, was not the compromise that was made, incidentally. I'm not going to wheel war, but this sort of breaks the promise I made to everyone that the article would not be fully protected until absolutely necessary, 12:00AM Nov 4th at the earliest. ~ L'Aquatique! [talk/stats] 23:56, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You're complaining that I protected it 5 12 minutes early? Raul654 (talk) 23:57, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the complaint is that it was protected hours early. TFA's don't always get full-protection. Why now? Grsz11 →Review! 00:18, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Depends on where you are in the world. Check your signature. --GoodDamon 00:20, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
FA? Are you kidding? Wikidemon (talk) 00:21, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Um, wow. You aren't kidding.Wikidemon (talk) 00:21, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's kind of cool that the article's back up there. :) Brothejr (talk) 00:24, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
When L'Aquatique said "November 4" I would assume actual election activity November 4. Polls don't open for another 11 and a half hours. Grsz11 →Review! 00:24, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I assumed the same. Does that also mean that the articles are moved off the main page in 24 hours? That would be before the polls close in most places. ~ priyanath talk 00:26, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not to mention that now Obama and McCain are full, while Palin and Biden are still semi, which was quite against consensus. Grsz11 →Review! 00:28, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it is. For the record, when I made the compromise my intention was to have these articles protected around the same time polls started opening on the east coast. These articles being featured on the front page complicates it, because if we keep them up on the front page unprotected, it'll be bad. But watching them get protected earlier than I promised bothers me as well. I am going to try to keep the VP bios unprotected until the promised time, we'll see what happens. ~ L'Aquatique! [talk/stats] 00:32, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Archive pls?

Can y'all please archive some of this talk page before mainpage hits? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:47, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm closing a number of discussions as resolved... I hope that's the right way to go about it and that the closures are not controversial - feel free to undo my closures and give me a trout-slap if not. I might combine a few repeated discussions. Perhaps someone would want to archive them. Wikidemon (talk) 00:28, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I guess this[4] did the trick. Thanks, Wikidemon (talk) 00:33, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Remove big template box

Could someone remove the big ugly template box at the top of the article? The twin main page article for today, John McCain, is also protected but just has the nice gold-colored lock icon off to the side, and doesn't have the big ugly template box that this article has. Tempshill (talk) 00:27, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Gimmetrow 00:53, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Tempshill (talk) 01:11, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Punctuation of "African American"

At present the article has "African American", "African-American" and "African–American". Could we have consistency? Nurg (talk) 00:31, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In my quick hunt through the MOS I see no preferred version. There is a rejected style guide, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (immigrant ethnic groups), that does not address hyphenation other than to say usages "vary". The Hyphenated American article claims that most style guides recommend dropping the hyphen except when the term is used as an adjective, but it cites only one such guide[5] that does not say this so clearly. At a Q&A page the Chicago Manual of Style recommends against the hyphen entirely.[6] At Talk:African American#hyphen there is no agreement. At Wikipedia talk:African American there is a comment that the matter is ad-hoc here, but consistent within an article. All in all I would vote for changing them all to "African American" without the hyphen. Wikidemon (talk) 00:51, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Barack Obama as a Law Professor at UCI

Here is an article quoting the UC administration that he was never a professor of law at the school, but was essentially an adjunct professor(or Lecturer). This is important since it is the introduction and does not accurately describe his position within the university. This is also important, because UC came out and actually said that he was not a Constitutional Law professor. I think this is important and should be updated/changed.

Here is the article : http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/03/sweet_obama_did_hold_the_title.html Dgreco (talk) 3 November 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't say he was. It says he "taught constitutional law". Grsz11 →Review! 00:49, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

'African American'

Obama is not an African American. he is not a negro. his background is Kenyan, so it should say Kenyan American, not African American. Kenya is in Africa, because Africa is a continent, but America is not a continent, so for the sake of consistency and logic if one were to persist with using the word African, it would be African-North American. Otherwise Kenyan American us the correct term. I doubt this will get changed though, people in the US just assume that if you're black you're a negro and an African American —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.219.117.97 (talk) 00:47, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's an interesting point; is there any precedence for this though (either IRL or on Wikipedia)? — pd_THOR | =/\= | 00:50, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In my quick hunt through the MOS I see no preferred version. There is a rejected style guide, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (immigrant ethnic groups), that does not address hyphenation other than to say usages "vary". The Hyphenated American article claims that most style guides recommend dropping the hyphen except when the term is used as an adjective, but it cites only one such guide[7] that does not say this so clearly. At a Q&A page the Chicago Manual of Style recommends against the hyphen entirely.[8] At Talk:African American#hyphen there is no agreement. At Wikipedia talk:African American there is a comment that the matter is ad-hoc here, but consistent within an article. All in all I would vote for changing them all to "African American" without the hyphen. Wikidemon (talk) 00:51, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I (and the IP) was referring to the idea of specifying the ancestry of "Kenyan" as opposed to just "African". — pd_THOR | =/\= | 00:54, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
On the surface your request makes sense, but that catagory only applies to persons born in various countries. African American is justified in this case since Obama was born in the U.S. and not Kenya.--Jojhutton (talk) 00:57, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've stricken my earlier answer. It was intended for the section on hyphenation. Regarding the racial designation, please see FAQ #2 (expand the FAQ at the top of this page). This issue has been discussed repeatedly, and there is strong long-term consensus for calling Obama African-American as a primary ethnic designation, then describing his background in more detail (as has been done) in the article. It is a combination of his self-identification and the overwhelming weight of reliable sources. Although there is a lot of history, politics, and arbitrariness in the words used to describe race, ethnicity, nationality, ancestry, etc., Wikipedia's choice is to follow the most universal reasonable standards rather than to be at the forefront of changing language. Wikidemon (talk) 01:01, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Cf. European-American or Asian-American. --Evb-wiki (talk) 01:06, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe one day we won't even have this discussion. I don't see in the John McCain article where we spend one kb of effort to describe him as Irish American (although I do note something in one of the article's category). I don't care that Obama is anything, I care only about what he may or may not do for this country. But, I'm like standing against a tsunami here, so I just think this discussion is queerly (meant as strange not a gay pejorative) American. Sigh. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 01:13, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Watch how a wiki works in real time

Here is an opportunity for people new to Wikipedia to see how editors constantly strive to improve our content. Discussions about how to improve the brief paragraphs that appear on Wikipedia's main page can be found at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/November 4, 2008 (just click the link). As well, you can see a history of the changes that have already been made here on the article history. Welcome to Wikipedia. Please feel free to edit this talk page, and offer your suggestions on how this article can be improved. Risker (talk) 01:05, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Birthplace is not official

Obama has ordered his birth certificate sealed. Since this public figure is keeping his certificate hidden, as far as I'm concerned, his birth information is unconfirmed, merely his say so. He's also, for some odd reason, ordered Kenya not to reveal any birth information about himself. Why would that be, unless he was born there? Why would he have to tell Kenya to seal "his" records? What records? Why would an American-born presidential candidate have to tell Kenya to officially seal "his" birth records? Very, very odd. GBC (talk) 01:15, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's part of a perennial conspiracy theory that Obama is not really American. This has been repeatedly addressed here. Please see question #5 among the frequently asked questions at the top of the page (expand by clicking on the FAQ hyperlink). Wikidemon (talk) 01:22, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why archive active discussions?

Active discussions have been archived. Why? I've never seen that before. WP:ARCHIVE: "It is customary to periodically archive old discussions on a talk page when that page becomes too large." Is an article last updated several dozen minutes ago too "old"? I continue to get the sense that people are using Wikipedia to support a candidate.

I urge people to look at the latest archive to see conversations that were active only hours before. If you want to talk about them again, you'll have to bring them here now, to a new section you may create. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 01:19, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Obama also established close relationships with prominent foreign politicians and elected officials even before his presidential candidacy, notably with former British Prime minister Tony Blair, whom he met in London in 2005"

This is the wikipedia quote. It states that Obama has close relationships with elected officals and then mentions Tony Blair as the former British PM. It should state "then current British Prime Minister"

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