Talk:Barack Obama

Why is this page censored?

Collapsing DD2K (talk) 03:53, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Im want add this iformation about president"s controvery, but page it semi-protectet. Cant im add this content, or americans peoples can not tolerate the truth, but "inconvenient" information about their politicians? Wikipedia tries to act as nezávyslý source infromací, and instead gives you only the word 'comfortable' articles and the "most appropriate" information. What is the objectivity? "Barack Obama was forced to face the accusations, maintaining long-term friendship with prominent American terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrnovou, former leader of the terrorist group Weatherman, which currently is one of the prominent leaders of the extreme left Chicago. [16] However, it showed that he had with Ayers close relationship [17]. Obama previously appointed her husband for green jobs, Van Jones. He previously led the San Francisco Center for Human Rights, focusing on social injustice and collective rights. When the 1992 fires in the Los Angeles race riots, revolutionary essay he wrote: "We are fighting for justice, our goal is to change the system! Yes, a great revolutionary moment finally arrived. This is our hour, "[18] Mentor young Barry Obama in Hawaii was the Negro communist activist and writer, Frank Marshall Davis, who was in the fifties (Mccarthysmus) investigated by the U.S. Chamber of Deputies Committee on un-American activities. Now Davis persuaded the young Obama, which raised his white grandparents from mother's side, the more stressed his black identity and his first name used but not Barry, but Barack. Obama's wife Michelle during her studies at Princeton is famous works, which described two possible position on the Negro in American society: integrationist and segregacionistický. Integrationist means of the values of American (ie white, capitalist) society and may be a way to success. One can, however, it also in its look as a betrayal černošskosti. His friends also include the radical pastor Jeremiah Wright. Among his ideas is the claim that HIV was deliberately invented by the U.S. government and used as a weapon against blacks and accused the U.S. government of plotting the attacks of September 11. [19] Wright is one of Obama's close friends, Obama met with him in the eighties .. Obama, Wright and his wife Michelle gave himself, as well as baptized their two daughters. Relations between him and the reverend married Obama's been warm. Barack Obama in 2008, however, distanced himself from Reverend Wright. In the past, there were also some doubts about the authenticity of Obama's birth certificate [20]. Target of sharp criticism was his effort with the help of subsidies to promote both the industry and ecology, especially the production of cars with electric drive. The Wall Street Journal Europe declared that part of his policy for disaster. [21]" --Fredy.00 (talk) 16:20, 31 December 2009 (UTC) Any use of th ephrase "Negro" is problematic. This quote in and of itself is objectionable. And why was this comment put at the top of the page? Woogee (talk) 03:18, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Just a suggestion

On controversial articles, perhaps we can advance the dialog thusly:

Post on the talk page what we would like to post in the article. Then, everyone opposed to the edit, list what that edit would need in order to pass muster. The opposition should not merely list the rules-based defects, but rather, should post rules-satisfying solutions to the defects. This goes the same for both "pro-Obama" and "con-Obama" edits. And by this method, we would be honestly assuming good faith in that we would be seeking to help each editorial voice be heard 7390r0g (talk) 17:23, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Probably won't work as some edits don't belong in the article no matter how you modify them, period. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 01:14, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Of course, if they have no reliable 3rd party sourcing, they should never be included, period.

Otherwise, no reason exists for excluding them, correct? --Jzyehoshua (talk) 10:56, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

There can be many other reasons, such as lack of notability, undue weight, etc. For example, if we find 50 articles saying that Barack Obama was friends with a 3 year old named Steve when he was 5 years old for about 4 days, it isn't notable or worth putting in this article unless that somehow had an impact on his life (like Steve was hit by a car, and Obama made a life long effort for car safety). It doesn't matter how many sources if it is just "was friends with Steve for a few days." It wouldn't belong. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 14:14, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

But if those 50 articles included sources such as CBS, the Washington Post, the New York Times, FactCheck.org, and the Chicago Tribune, Wikipedia would be obligated to provide the coverage anyway, particularly if it occurred over a period of years, rather than just a short time period (aka Recentism). In other words, the heavy news coverage would imply relevance to Barack Obama. I think you're making the same point I am, that Recentism is involved as well, and that coverage needs to be over a period of years ideally to show controversy, not just a few months. However, even then it may still be relevant if it was a major enough event. If it's heavily sourced enough, then we shouldn't be asking whether it's relevant enough, but finding a place in the article for it to be put, and if there is no place, then making one. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 14:44, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

But as you've been told numerous times before, that place already exists, and the info is there.  Frank  |  talk  15:00, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and the result is for example, with the partial birth abortion controversy, that a controversy is mentioned in such child articles for Barack Obama (at least a dozen articles on Wikipedia in all) but not the main Barack Obama article which has been a featured article and the only one that really gets read. I would guess the traffic differences for the main page and child articles are drastic to the extent the main page might get more traffic than all others combined. At any rate, the main page should be accurately portraying the information on child articles, and if the result is that controversies get mentioned on child articles but not the main article, the issue of bias may need to get raised in relation to the main article.

For example, the 1st archive for the Barack Obama talk page shows that the issue of bias on this article was getting raised even then - not only was it being criticized in 2004 of "reading like a commercial"[4] that "could be something issued from his PR. department"[5] but was also a featured article during the 04 senate race between Keyes and Obama, leading 4 different users to raise the objection that it was giving unfair advantage to Obama.[6]

My point is that given the heavy criticism in the past of how this article displays controversy (and there have been dozens of users) and how much discussion this article had in the past on which controversies to show (there's plenty just in the first 10 pages of archives - which I've now read) we should be especially careful on this page to be sure that controversy is not covered up and kept hidden on other pages. There were mentions of Obama controversies in the text of the page, both for partial birth abortion and Rezko, that at some point got removed. I am just starting on the 2008 archives but would like to know why all the mentions of these controversies got suddenly deleted. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 15:40, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Are you serious? What you are basically saying is that you believe that the "controversy" over what you call "partial birth abortion" is not getting enough attention because the sub-articles in which this faux controversy are mentioned don't get as much traffic as this one? That's as clear an admission as I've ever seen that you are POV-pushing. Your goal is not to improve the article, but to try to give your POV a wider audience. That's disgraceful. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:59, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't have to bring this up if your bias did not result in all major controversies getting pushed into footnotes and child articles because your POV pushing is so extreme that it removes all previous mention of the controversies that DID exist on this page up until at least 2008. Before you and Lulu of the Lotus Eaters came in sometime early in 2008, the article did mention his controversy on voting present on abortion bills and the controversy of anti-abortion groups protesting against his Rick Warren interview.[7] I haven't yet figured out who was responsible for removing what had earlier achieved consensus for addition to the article, and was a part of it for many years, but I'm getting closer to narrowing down the time frame it had to have happened it in, early 2008. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jzyehoshua (talk • contribs) 16:18, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

There is no controversy. This is pure fantasy. Take your anti-abortion rhetoric to the blogosphere and stop wasting Wikipedia's time. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:23, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes. You don't like my 'rhetoric'. We've established that. -.^

The bottom line is this:

• From 2005-2008 on this article either the controversy over Obama's present votes was mentioned in the State Legislature section[8] or Keyes' criticism of him about abortion was mentioned in the Senate Campaign-General section.[9] Not until 2008 was this information, which previously had not undergone opposition, suddenly removed.
• At least one dozen different Wikipedia articles already reference the controversy (Political positions of Barack Obama, Barack Obama social policy, United States Senate career of Barack Obama, The Case Against Barack Obama, Comparison of United States presidential candidates, 2008, Alan Keyes, William R. Haine, Jill Stanek, James Dobson, Nat Hentoff, Gianna Jessen, and The Committee for Truth in Politics).
• The controversy has been covered in the media by such prominent organizations as CBS,[10] the Chicago Tribune,[11] the Washington Post,[12] the Wall Street Journal,[13] the National Review,[14] FactCheck.org,[15] Time Magazine,[16] ABC News,[17] FOX News,[18] Newsweek,[19] the New York Times,[20], and the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC).[21]
• The bill Obama voted against was the Illinois version of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that became the most prominent abortion-related bill in decades, and as an act of government behind only Roe v. Wade in prominence here in the United States. The bill outlawed the practice of intact dilation and extraction in which children are killed while being delivered and in some cases survive only to be left to die - which fact played a key role in the testimony and ultimate Congressional decision.[22] Obama was the only Illinois state senator to speak out against the bill on the senate floor, but for years would mis-represent his vote until his campaign was finally forced to concede the lies.[23]

I simply do not understand how you can objectively deny that this is either not prominent or poorly sourced. You can keep calling it rhetoric all you want, but objectively, any controversy surrounding a public figure that has this sort of evidence and sourcing ought to be referenced prominently on their main Wikipedia article. The fact that you are still so adamantly opposing it does not speak well for your impartiality. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 18:34, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I will however say this: I noticed the Rezko controversy is at least now mentioned in the article. I don't remember it being there before, was that added recently? I am only on archive page 10 so far, and already have found at least 20 different users who complained because for a long time it was just mentioned as a footnote (#139 as of July 2007) with all the info and sources for it hidden down in the footnote. That had a LOT of people complaining.

[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37]  ::::::::Again, those are just from the first 10 archive pages, and if they're any indication, this is easily one of the most controversial pages on Wikipedia. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 15:58, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Most of the discussions you are referring to are the result of a massive farm of sock puppets trying to shove their POV into the article too. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:02, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Completely not true. Hempbilly and TDC had some sockpuppets I know, but many other users were opposed that were not sockpuppets. User:Jbpo, User:Gzkn, User:Flatterworld, User:Zz414, User:I'mDown, User:bbatsell, User:Ogeez, User:Eisenmond, User:Peterpressurepeterp, User:Mbc362, User:Nuclearj, User:Jogurney, User:HailFire, User:Tvoz, User:69.149.249.41, User:Decoratrix, User:Plumbing, User:Bjewiki, User:Gloriamarie, User:204.58.248.33, User:Lawrencekhoo, User:Loonymonkey, User:Steve Dufour, User:Johnreginaldsmith. All of them on those pages at one point or another supported inclusion of the Rezko material in some way on the page and agreed it was a controversy that needed inclusion on the Barack Obama page.

EDIT: I removed unbased assertions comment, which was defensive because of your comments about sock puppets and rhetoric. Will try to tone it down. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 16:26, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I supported the inclusion of some Rezko stuff too, but not the massive amount demanded by the POV-pushers and their socks. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:33, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

From what I saw, they just wanted it in the text of the article rather than hidden down in the text of footnote 139. It had been enough in the news, particularly the Chicago Tribune, for them to have had a good case for it too, I thought. Some, like the TDC and Hempbilly clones (I forget if either of them was the Dexter1x one) were annoying and being too pushy, but there many good users who simply wanted the article to show a major controversy fairly, rather than in a footnote. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 16:38, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I like the suggestion by 7390r0g by the way. I have been reading over the old archives for this talk page (may make a discussion on this later when research complete) and found similar cooperation when confronting past controversies. For example, there was an old thread, "The exhaustive controversies survey" where each user stated whether they thought a controversy notable or not, and why.[38] HailFire was one of the original big-time editors and though very critical of controversy suggestions, he helped create compromises so that the controversies on partial birth abortion and Rezko were both included in the article (the latter which even the normally anti-controversy Tvoz agreed with).[39][40]

Anyway, this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as the old controversy discussions. Because of constructive discussions like this, for many years there was mention of such controversies on the Obama page. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 14:44, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

P.S. It appears that sometime around 2008 all the mentions of controversies on Obama's page were removed. I haven't figured out why yet, but hope to learn so I can relay that information here as I learn more from the archives. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jzyehoshua (talk • contribs) 14:47, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

No, please do not rehash the history of this page. For the umpteenth time this page is for discussing improvements to the article, not editor behavior, much less historical inquiries of editor behavior. Most of the advocacy to add criticism and controversy during 2008 and early 2009 was indeed done by families of sockpuppets that took many months and dozens of trips to the administrative boards to uproot. There was also a protracted arbitration case, and some follow-up actions to that, resulting in restrictions against some of the editors. Article probation arose in the early part of this mess in response to some of the problems. That may have hardened the resolve of the legitimate editors and overshadowed what few good faith attempts there were to expand material they considered critical of OBama, but a rock solid lasting consensus emerged among the legitimate editors on a number of points including not having a criticisms section, not evaluating content changes as matters of adjusting the perceived pro and anti-Obama bias of the article, and the level of treatment given some of the election-year campaign issues. Some like Rezko and Wright, and prior drug use, were mentioned at a level deemed appropriate given their overall importance to Obama's life and not just as attack issues raised by a sometimes desperate losing political campaign. Others, particularly conspiracyt heories like his supposedly being a Muslim, "palling around with terrorists", and the birther conspiracy theories, did not seem to be credible issues about Obama's life, and were therefore relegated to other articles where they would be more relevant. After all of the trouble dealing with this there has not been any appetite to re-open the issue, and all of these things are if anything less relevant now that the presidential election is water under the bridge. Re-opening one and two year old process issues, particularly given an arduous and antagonistic history that has already been adjudicated by ArbCom, is not going to be productive here. As a number of other editors have been requesting, if there are specific content proposals we can discuss them on their own merits. I have no desire at all, and it will probably shut down consideration of any of these, to couch this in terms of trying to put a more anti-Obama spin on the article or assailing the editors who have been active here. - Wikidemon (talk) 19:25, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, if only to show there has been a lot of discussion on the issue of what controversies to include (despite some still continuing to claim there are no controversies), I think the discussion is useful. For example, as recently as May 2008,[41] the article did contain information about Obama's controversial present abortion votes, his Reverend Wright association, and opposition by 18 pro-life groups to his interview with Rick Warren that have now been excluded from the article. Starting in May 2008 with the removal of mention of his controversial abortion votes, and ending in mid November 2008, all evidence of these controversies had been removed.[42] I found evidence that as early as April 2008 Scjessey was attempting to remove mentions of the Wright and Rezko controversies from the page.[43][44] I also found there evidence a user named TheGoodLocust had supported a similar addition to mine about Emil Jones making Obama a U.S. senator through appointing him head over key legislation, but Ubiq wanted it watered down so it did not mention his legislative record had been built in one year. Another user, Grsz11, also denied the need for mentioning that vital fact, but at least remained relatively civil and reasonable during the conversation.[45] Scjessey again attempted removal of controversies, asserting they violated Wikipedia guidelines on BLP, WEIGHT, NPOV, and RECENT, and that he had overwhelming consensus. Here, him and user called Andyvphil and Kossack4Truthlocked horns over the subject.[46][47] As a result of Scjessey working with an admin named Josiah Rowe it appears the tables began turning in April against mention of controversies.[48] I am only looking at April 2008 and expect the further months will reveal much more about who else was involved here.

It should be pointed out that from 2004-2008, the following users had supported mention of the present votes on abortion bills in the article:

• User:J8427 July 2006, Archive 2[49]
• User:Bobblehead April 2007, Archive 8[50]
• User:Dce7 April 2007, Archive 8[51]
• User:Pic82101 April 2007, Archive 8[52]
• User:HailFire March 2007, Archive 8[53]
• User:jpgordon March 2007, Archive 8[54] (supported if sourced reliably)
• User:Ernham March 2007, Archive 8[55]
• User:8.11.254.188 March 2007, Archive 8[56]

Sometime in May 2008 the edit was removed. Why I don't yet know. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 00:31, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

It is called "progress", where a shitty article full of innuendo and fringe gutter-sniping is revised into a reliably-sourced, well-written, and neutrally-voiced feature article. Trawling through 4+ years of past edits hoping to return the article back to some broken former state doesn't exactly strike me as a productive use of time. Tarc (talk) 00:50, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Tarc above, searching 4+ years of archives to find someone who agrees with you doesn't really help your case. One of the few you could find has been banned for 2+ years, he's not really a good reference anyway. The state of this article in 2006 has absolutely no bearing on the current status. As I'm sure you've noticed, there have been some pretty major changes in the life of the subject since then. Dayewalker (talk) 01:17, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, Kossack4Truth turned out to be a sock puppet of a notorious puppeteer who plagued this topic for years, forcing real editors into endless debates and meaningless arguments. You have clearly stated, Jzyehoshua, that your intention is to try to get various faux controversies (with particular attention being given to this fictional abortion controversy) into the article. That is what we call agenda-driven editing, or "POV-pushing" in some circles, and it is totally unacceptable. We are here to build a project, not make a point. Shameful. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:46, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Years of past edits without anyone complaining about the changes, I might add. 4+ years where the article already was a feature article as early as 2004, and being referenced in the press during 2006. I think you'd have a hard time portraying it as being considered as horrible as you just made it sound. I didn't find many because after the inclusion of the material in 2005, there wasn't really any controversy surrounding it. Few brought it up requesting the addition of more material and I'm not sure anyone created a complaint thread about it pre-2008 before Scjessey and Lulu of the Lotus-eaters simultaneously arrived on the scene. Feel free to try finding any objections to it but from what I saw, it was mostly just ensuring that good sources were being used. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 04:52, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think you have a clue what you are talking about, and I take great exception to the fact that you have repeatedly implied that I have collaborated inappropriately with other editors. The real problems with this article began as soon as Obama announced his candidacy for POTUS, whereupon it was besieged by various groups of POV pushers, including racists who were clearly apoplectic at the notion that the US might have an African-American POTUS. Every conceivable negative aspect, however insignificant, was furiously and repeatedly debated. You can get some idea of the problems by perusing Wikipedia:General sanctions/Obama article probation/Log of sanctions, and these don't include the myriad problems prior to article probation. -- Scjessey (talk) 05:07, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Nobody's heeding my request to avoid discussions about editor behavior here, but if you must know that log captures perhaps 2/3 of all the sanctions brought under article probation during its primary period from August 2008 through the announcement of the Arbcom decision in June 2009. After that I lost interest in keeping up so the hit rate is closer to 1/4 or 1/3. The disruption did quiet down considerably after March or April, 2009, that trend is real. What the log doesn't show are the dozens of trips back and forth to the administrative notice boards, particularly AN/I, with the socks growing increasingly adept at torpedoing requests to deal with them by launching counter-accusations, making it look like two sides fighting, appeals to anti-authority skepticism, gaming discussions, etc. The socks were nearly all trying to add Republican party-line material (Wright, Rezko, Ayers, affirmative action poster child) and sometimes conspiracy theories (citizenship, Muslim, communist sympathizer, academic fraud) about Obama, although at least one of those defending the article from the onslaught was found to be a sock as well. For one several-month stretch farfetched negative campaign memes (e.g. Obama's political career was "launched" from Bill Ayers' living room) were hitting Wikipedia as fast as they appeared on the blogs and partisan press, well before they found attention, if any, among mainstream pundits. The socks had some common refrains, accusing liberal-minded editors, "Obama fanboys", and "campaign workers" of article ownership, "whitewashing" and "scrubbing" (they liked those words) the article of criticism, turning into a "hagiography" (they liked that word too), trying to have dissenting editors banned, and of course POV bias. No doubt some non-sockpuppets, mostly editors new to the Obama pages or new to Wikipedia entirely, were sympathetic to their arguments and/or mistook the volume of bogus edits for an actual body of opinion among legitimate editors that the Obama article was biased or controlled by a liberal cabal. Those suckered into siding with the socks expressed surprise (which may have been genuine to the extent they were legitimate accounts, something that has not usually the case around here) that they were summarily ignored or their intentions questioned when they repeated the opinions and proposals that the socks had been promoting. The issue came to a head this past March when one of the more obscure sockpuppets, an activist journalist best known here until then for trying to promote himself by adding accolades to his own Wikipedia entry, provoked a block by edit warring some birther claims, then wrote an account of the experience in which he claimed to observe that the Obama article was controlled by pro-Obama manipulators, without admitting that he himself had engineered the incident he was writing about. Editing volume on the talk and article page increased by a factor of ten for two days, most of it disruptive, until the article was locked down. These events led indirectly to the Arbcom case, although the committee missed the boat by conducting only a superficial analysis of only several editors' contributions over a several-day period after the incident, without looking at how editors were dealing with the incident itself or the many sock farms that had been active earlier. That is all water under the bridge - as long as the article is stable and the socks don't return - and having wasted so much time on it, the veteran editors aren't really interested wasting any more. I hope that begins to explain why people are not very eager to entertain for perhaps the fiftieth or sixtieth time claims that the article needs to have a more negative spin, or that the article has a history of WP:OWN. It doesn't matter if you are liberal or voted for Obama (yet another of the socks common refrains), that should not and does not get anyone a free pass around here. Trouble is trouble. - Wikidemon (talk) 12:12, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't be surprised if the Republican party, or the Democrat party, for that matter, had call center like computer centers set up for their staff to try changing this site. Just look at Wikiscanner, apparently both sides aren't all that clean. However, what I am is saying is, I don't think this was a problem before the 08 election. If you look at the first 12 pages or so of archives, it shows there was generally a pretty nice atmosphere on the board. And there was very real concern about controversies getting enough coverage, and not just by some socks either. However, editors were able to talk things through, hold surveys, and generally reach consensus about including the controversy. And yes, there was support for including the partial birth abortion controversy, though it was not discussed nearly as much as the Rezko article on here.

I read some of the arbcom case already[57][58]. It looks like the issue has continued also on the Sarah Palin article and now a Climategate article where an arbcom is ongoing (I think someone named Caspian is involved there too).

However, I wouldn't have to bring up this old controversy stuff if people didn't keep trying to refuse arguments on the basis of "there's no consensus" or "it's not a controversy". My primary reason for bringing it up is to show that yes, there were users who considered this a controversy, and who did want it in the article. And what's more, they did so with less sourcing to back it up than I'm now providing. Regardless of what happened before, or what my or anyone else's political beliefs are, the bottom line should be whether or not the material I want included has the 3rd-party sourcing it needs for inclusion. This whole consensus argument stuff against considering the sources though is what requires me to look back in the archives to show there was for a long time consensus without opposition for its inclusion, that this has been an issue, and that why it was removed should be an issue. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 17:00, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

P.S. I just got to the section Scjessey referred to. While there was a lot of controversy I'm seeing over him not wanting controversial mentions of Rezko/Wright in the article when he first came in, I will concede that I just saw evidence he made a good-faith attempt to work a compromise showing controversial aspects of the Wright mess going on in the media.[59] Also, I saw from that archive discussion that User:Andyvphil had a well-written edit but was trying to push WAY too much on the Wright issue into the article (3-5 paragraphs) when he should've tried settling for a few sentences. I will have to read more into the archives to figure out what was going on. I am only up to March 2008 right now. However, I do think there is controversy surrounding Obama that should be mentioned in the article. I have not been saying that needs to be via long essays, just that it should be mentioned at all to ensure all prominent views are shown in the article. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 17:00, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Article of finite length

An obvious point that many partisan editors seems to fail to understand (or selectively ignores anyway), is that some content that was biographically significant in an article about an IL State Senator is simply not notable for inclusion in the main biography of the POTUS. Of course, as well the article presumably has achieved better focus and writing quality over time also. This article is 23k words of readable prose (about 170k total bytes, including non-main content), which is pretty much the maximum proper length of a WP article, if not longer (see WP:SIZE, WP:SPLIT, and WP:SUMMARY). Moreover, it has been this same approximate length (of readable text, the footnotes have grown quite a lot) for at least 4 years.

Saying that some content is relevant (whether included years ago or brand new) needs to be framed as "is more important than some content currently in the article. If we add something on, say, Obama's childhood friendships, we need to take out, e.g. his Nobel Prize to make room for it. Today's polling numbers, or some minor point about an early campaign, are unlikely to reach that "more important" threshold (even if the facts are perfectly true, and perfectly well supported by WP:RS). If someone wants to make an argument to include dramatically new content (or equally, recirculated very old content), they need to show why this content is more important than something we have in the article now, and ideally also take out what they are replacing. That argument is not necessarily impossible, but to pretend it need not be made is dishonest and destructive. LotLE×talk 19:14, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Length concern

My above statement is actually far too generous to those proposing additions. In fact, looking more closely this article is really too long now. It is true that some a good chunk of the growth is in footnotes, which is not so much harmful. However, the article itself has also been growing, and growing too fast and recently. Looking over a couple years of edits, the article has usually always been below 140k bytes, and very often below 130k, until the last few months. Now it has grown quite excessively to 170k. This screams out to me that we desperately need another refactoring pass to get better WP:SUMMARY style... and we need it soon. LotLE×talk 19:25, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

• While length does seem to be a concern, balance is a far greater concern, and outweighs issues of length. If length is to be dealt with, side-by-side attention needs to be given to NPOV concerns. If only one is to be dealt with, it needs to be NPOV. UnitAnode 19:37, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Length is only a concern if one is proposing things that would substantially increase length. Failing that it's not a concern so much as an adjustment. If you want one section to grow you would have to find something else to condense. I don't think it would be practical to split this article, but as Obama's life history gets longer this might involve reducing coverage and taking a more summary approach to the capsule versions in sections that then link to subjects that are treated by their own articles. Balance is not a content concern, as I have discussed many times. If you have a specific change we can address that, but adding negative stuff to try to reach a balance is not a legitimate way to go about improving the article. - Wikidemon (talk) 19:51, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I use "balance" and "NPOV" as synonyms. If that's not how you think of the word "balance", then simply substitute "NPOV" wherever I have typed "balance." With that said, do you not agree that a biographical article should present something of a balanced view of the subject? What I mean by this, is it should be neither hagiography nor hit piece. Right now, this article seems to be drifting dangerously close to the former while being in absolutely no danger of becoming the latter. UnitAnode 20:36, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Balance and WP:NPOV are definitely not synonyms, and I can't believe anyone could describe the Barack Obama article as a Hagiography, or anything close to it. To me, even the consideration of that(as it stands now) is absurd. A WP:BLP is supposed to read like an encyclopedia entry. Interesting fact and biographical information. If one tries to 'balance' a biography, they are trying to alter the biography for reasons that do not apply to an encyclopedia entry. This whole discussion is out of line. If people have specific proposals that they think should be added, then make the proposals. Otherwise this whole talk page is turning into a Obama forum with would-be editors drawing battle lines over whatever grievance that catches their fancy. Now we have a user who is digging through the archives and detailing edits and editors and applying his own opinions on what these editors want, and another editor that keeps insisting on the urgent need to 'balance' the article. Let's at least try to stick to the guidelines and stop turning the talk page into a 500,000 word giant want of text.DD2K (talk) 00:10, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

We're having a discussion about the article, on the talkpage. If you have a problem with that, no one is forcing you to participate. And for the record, this article isn't a hagiography. My point is this: if "hagiography" is at one end of the spectrum, and "hit piece" is at the other, it's much closer to the former than the latter. It should be neither, and it should be neutral, with appropriate criticisms woven into the text. Right now, it has almost no critical commentary woven into the text. That needs to be fixed. A couple of threads have been opened above to deal with particular areas of concern. UnitAnode 01:29, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Measuring articles on such a spectrum, as if lack of disparagement constitutes endorsement, is entirely unhelpful. No, the article should not be measured on whether it paints a positive or negative picture of its subject, and particularly not whether we need to add positive or negative things like salt or sugar to make it seem just right. If there is a specific part of the article, positive, negative, or indifferent, that you think needs to be improved, we're all ears. If you just want to add negative stuff or delete positive stuff so that the article reaches a predetermined level of endorsement or opposition, that is not what an encyclopedia is about. - Wikidemon (talk) 01:45, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I disagree slightly in nuance, Wikidemon. I guess it depends on what "substantially" means here. But we've seen a lot of growth in small increments, in this article, where someone adds "just a sentence (with a footnote or two)" on some side point that interests them. That one sentence doesn't by itself make the article "too long", but enough of them added together does and has. What would be better--but more work--would be for an editor to look at the whole paragraph (or even section) in which the new sentence is added, and figure out a way to include the new wrinkle in a way integrated with the previously existing discussion, all in a way that was no more words (and ideally fewer) than were there before. Such a re-characterization will naturally be at a slightly higher-level of summary for the prior points; however, that is exactly what we should do, as more salient biographical facts occur over time with the article subject. Given that this article points to many child and sibling articles where details are better discussed, gradually and continually moving summaries to higher levels provides the best experience for readers. LotLE×talk 20:13, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

You know what? This whole exercise is little more than banging my head against the wall. Nothing can be accomplished, and I'll only end up with a headache. I've tried multiple times to help those of you who currently serve as regular editors to see what I (and many others, for that matter) perceive as serious issues with the tone and scope of this article. Clearly that's not going to happen. I'm tired of trying to explain how a neutral observer (and I'm that, if nothing else) would look at this article and see a clear pro-Obama bias. No one seems to want to acknowledge that, no matter how I frame the concern. At this point, I'm considering just removing this article (I currently watch all presidential articles, just as a matter of course) from my watchlist and being done with it. It's not worth the stress and accusations that have come from trying to work on it. UnitAnode 17:00, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Controversies

proposer is topic banned for one month
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The editor proposing this appears to be acting alone, and is currently topic banned.[[60]] - Wikidemon (talk) 22:26, 2 January 2010 (UTC) My concern in closing the discussion is that without the participation of Jzyehoshua I don't think we'll have much support for a proposal made in this form to change content, and it would be unhelpful and unfair to pile on opposition without Jzyehoshua's participation. It's fine to open back up if Jzyehoshua feels he can return to this after the topic ban is over or if successfully appealed, or if someone wants to pick up and run with it, but as a personal observation I would repeat my advice given above that it's best not to make too many proposals at the same time, or to try to convince editors to change their minds by accusing them however politely of bias or of being on the wrong side of a long history of past contention on the article. - Wikidemon (talk) 22:26, 2 January 2010 (UTC) Key: Mention and Former Mention refer to the exact text that was included in the Barack Obama article in the past. Location refers to where on the page it was listed, and Time Frame refers to when the material was included in the article. Links are to pages near the beginning of when the material was included and near the time it was removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jzyehoshua (talk • contribs) 20:31, 2 January 2010 (UTC) Currently Mentioned: Rezko Affiliation Mention: "The purchase of an adjacent lot and sale of part of it to Obama by the wife of developer, campaign donor and friend Tony Rezko attracted media attention because of Rezko's subsequent indictment and conviction on political corruption charges that were unrelated to Obama." Location: Below 85.9% of article text. Public Financing Mention: "On June 19, 2008, Obama became the first major-party presidential candidate to turn down public financing in the general election since the system was created in 1976." Location: Below 45.2% of article text. Nobel Peace Prize Mention: "The award was a surprise to many, including Obama himself.[250] The award drew a mixture of praise and criticism from world leaders and media figures.[251][252] Members of the selection committee defended their choice against criticism that the award was premature." Location: Below 100.0% of article text. Formerly Mentioned, Now Removed: Abortion Former Mention: "He was also criticized by a rival pro-choice candidate in the Democratic primary and by his Republican pro-life opponent in the general election for having voted either "present" or "no" on anti-abortion legislation." Time Frame: April 2007-April 2008[61][62] Former Mention: "After a campaign in which Keyes called Obama's position on abortion "the slave-holder's position" and also claimed that Jesus would not vote for Obama, Obama won handily in the general election." Time Frame: May 2005-April 2006[63][64] Former Mention: "Before the conference, 18 conservative and anti-abortion figures sent an open letter stating, in reference to Obama's support for legal abortion: "In the strongest possible terms, we oppose Rick Warren's decision to ignore Senator Obama's clear pro-death stance and invite him to Saddleback Church anyway." Time Frame: January 2007-April 2008[65][66] Reverend Wright: Former Mention: "In March 2008, a controversy broke out concerning Obama's former pastor of twenty years, Jeremiah Wright,[94] after ABC News broadcast clips of his racially and politically charged sermons.[94][95] Initially, Obama responded by defending Wright's wider role in Chicago's African American community,[96] but condemned his remarks and ended Wright's relationship with the campaign.[97] Obama delivered a speech, during the controversy, entitled "A More Perfect Union"[98] that addressed issues of race. Obama subsequently resigned from Trinity United Church of Christ "to avoid the impression that he endorsed the entire range of opinions expressed at that church."" Time Frame: March 2008-October 2008[67][68] Former Mention: "A theme of Obama's keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and the title of his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope, was inspired by a sermon by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the pastor of Trinity." Time Frame: February 2007-February 2008[69][70] Minor Issues: Bobby Rush Former Mention: "In 2000, Obama made an unsuccessful Democratic primary run for the U.S. House of Representatives seat held by four-term incumbent candidate Bobby Rush. Rush, a former Black Panther and community activist, said that Obama had not "been around the 1st Congressional District long enough to really see what's going on."[29] Rush received 61% of the vote to Obama's 30%." Time Frame: February 2006-March 2007[71][72] Summary: As seen here, a number of notable controversies that had been mentioned on the article for a year or more were, between April and October 2008, removed from the Barack Obama article, including: -Mention of controversial votes on abortion legislation. -Mention of noted anti-abortion figures protesting against his speech at Saddleback Church. -Mention of the Reverend Wright controversy, or even Wright in general. Furthermore, despite all the discussion on the talk page in the past over inclusion of such material, when such critical material is mentioned, it is often done so without reference of the prominent media coverage at the time. What is more, it appeared that negative scandals or mention of controversial events were being steadily pushed farther and farther down the page as 2008 wore on, regardless of the event's sourcing and prominence in the news. This seems a clear example of undue weight. For example, the current article mentions prominently at the top that Obama claimed his drug use was his greatest moral failure (possible leading) and mentions a 1993 occurrence where he was named to Crain's Small Busines "Forty Under 40". However, more words are spent on that one reference than the prominent 2004 senate campaign between Keyes and Obama, or the Public Financing scandal which wore on for months during the 2008 elections - both of which get mentioned much lower, and negligibly. The article also appeared to grow sizeably during the 2008 general election, even as the controversies were being removed from the article. Is it possible more info was being added at the top to hide what few mentions of controversy remained? (Seeing as they've been getting mentioned as minimally as possible). --Jzyehoshua (talk) 20:13, 2 January 2010 (UTC) I could see including the unsuccessful run against Bobby Rush with much more neutral language. Intelligent criticism of the Nobel Peace Prize (i.e., refraining from using any criticism calling it the "Nobel Not-Being-George-Bush Prize") may be warranted in "Public perception" section, and turning down funding—which is not a controversy in itself (and I don't see how it is; wouldn't his opponents be happy he's not using public taxes for his run?)—could be mentioned in the relevant place. However, I remain opposed to inclusion of the Jeremiah Wright scandal in this article, as it's classic guilt by association, or criticism for his position on abortion; his views on abortion are rather party-line, and we don't mention criticism about Bush's party-line views on gay rights. Sceptre (talk) 20:32, 2 January 2010 (UTC) Another thing I noticed about the current mention of Rush in the Obama article. It states that Rush beat Obama by a 2 to 1 margin, but doesn't mention that margin was 61 to 30%. On the other hand, a similar margin favorable to Obama is mentioned specifically, the 70 to 27% Obama beat Keyes by (which number is given). And it removed mention the article once had about how Keyes came into the election late. I am not sure how relevant the Rush quote is though, but the wording does not seem to be a problem. It merely provides further detail about a key campaign in his life. If anything, the article needs more quotes from outside sources and fewer from Obama himself. However, it would be nice to know whether this was a major talking point by Rush during the election, and whether another quote might be better suited. I only mentioned the Rush wording because it was a notable critical part of the article early on before getting removed in 2007. We do need more information though about the elections and his voting record when covered by the press to provide a measure of objectivity, however. It seems a higher proportion of quotes on this article are by Obama himself, as opposed to other individuals or media organizations. It has the effect of telling everything from Obama's point of view while excluding mention of outside commentary. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 21:26, 2 January 2010 (UTC) Again, there's no point in covering his voting record on abortion in any great length; it'd be like covering a Republican's voting record on gay rights. In fact, we don't cover McCain's record on same-sex marriage in the main article, and his view on same-sex marriages is actually away from the GOP party line (i.e., he wants SSM devolved to the states, rather than passage of the Federal Marriage Amendment), and all we mention about gay rights in Bush's biography is his support of the FMA on the 2004 campaign trail. Sceptre (talk) 21:36, 2 January 2010 (UTC) The fact that Obama resigned from Wright's church over his comments is already in the article and the controversy article is linked. What exactly are the proposed content edits here? --guyzero | talk 20:38, 2 January 2010 (UTC) Oh, I'll admit I hadn't seen that small mention of Wright in the current article. It says, "Obama resigned from Trinity during the Presidential campaign after controversial statements made by Rev. Jeremiah Wright became public.[221]" Given the depth of the controversy, which wore on for months, I don't think it would be excessive to mention some element of what this public controversy entailed, something to show it was a major event at the time, such as mention of a major press release or news outlet at the time, and it should also say something of what was controversial about those comments. Otherwise, it comes across as concealing what the actual controversy was. To assume that not mentioning such a key element of what the controversy involved on the basis that people can read it in the linked child article would be not only wrong but have the effect of positively covering up a negative circumstance surrounding Obama's life. In the archives, I noticed that it was mentioned by User:Wasted Time R that anything moved into a subarticle gets 1% of the views the main article does. here[73] This was demonstrated via page views. For that reason, I think it especially crucial to mention key details about a major controversy on the page so that it's recognized first that it was a controversy and secondly why it was a controversy, if only via a sentence or 2, to ensure that the fact the matter was a major public controversy isn't hidden away. I would recommend something similar to the former edit which existed for over a year. "In March 2008, a controversy broke out concerning Obama's former pastor of twenty years, Jeremiah Wright,[94] after ABC News broadcast clips of his racially and politically charged sermons.[94][95] Initially, Obama responded by defending Wright's wider role in Chicago's African American community,[96] but condemned his remarks and ended Wright's relationship with the campaign.[97] Obama delivered a speech, during the controversy, entitled "A More Perfect Union"[98] that addressed issues of race. Obama subsequently resigned from Trinity United Church of Christ "to avoid the impression that he endorsed the entire range of opinions expressed at that church." That way, it's evident the event was prominent in the press as controversial, and that the controversy stemmed from Wright's racially and politically charged sermons. The only thing the edit might be lacking is detail about the speech, "A More Perfect Union", because the sentence doesn't seem to quite fit. I mean, yes, he delivered a speech on race at the time, but why was that relevant? --Jzyehoshua (talk) 21:26, 2 January 2010 (UTC) Everything you have said above seems to be about trying to get a wider audience for what you perceive as "controversies". You want to see more about Jeremiah Wright, but that's already in the article about Jeremiah Wright (and even a special article dedicated to matter). You want to see more about the Bobby Rush victory, but that's already in the article about Obama's Illinois Senate career of Barack Obama. You want to see more about abortion even though Obama's views are consistent with both the party line, and the prevailing public opinion on the matter (and are thus of little consequence). This is a summary style article because there is an awful lot to cover, which means much of the "meat" of things must necessarily be explored in separate articles. That's the beauty of Wikipedia - it uses the World Wide Web paradigm of "click here if you want to know more" so that we don't have to have everything on one page. These things that you seek to promote are already covered with the appropriate weight, and the massive discussion archive is evidence that every single thing was debated and discussed vigorously in order to get us to the point that we are today. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:31, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Edit Request

The spoken version of the article is far out of date (Sept. 3, 2008) . The link should be disabled until an up-to-date version is available.

Add "Politician" to the "Occupation" section.

Politician is not usually listed as an occupation because well, that's obvious. Instead, we list previous occupations, such as lawyer. Grsz¹¹ 00:06, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

War on terrorism

Could you point out to me what is the reason that there is only one occurence of the word "terror" in the article? Just to remind you that there is an ongoing war on terrorism both in Iraq and in Afghanistan lead by Obama. For a comparison: G.W.Bush's article contains 24 times the terror word. For a foreign people, like me, reading the article one could have an idea, that there is no terror threat in US. TomasGerbs (talk) 00:46, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Because the quality of an article isn't directly proportional to the number of times "terror" is mentioned in it? Because if you ranked all the countries of the world in order of which was most under threat from a terrorist attack, the US wouldn't even be in the top 10? Because "terror" is a word to avoid? Because Bush's article isn't as good as this one? Because no wars were officially declared? Because the "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan were started by Bush, not Obama? Shall I continue? -- Scjessey (talk) 00:54, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I thought that "we" have to write the truth. If we would write 0 times the word of terror then there would not exist such articles for example: War on Terrorism. "Because the "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan were started by Bush, not Obama?" To assume the good faith, the truth is that these are started by Bush, and continued by Obama. TomasGerbs (talk) 01:09, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

By the way, it says on your userpage that you study math. Does that include multiplication, by any chance? -- Scjessey (talk) 01:00, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what you want to ask, goto my userpage, this is not the right place, as I think. TomasGerbs (talk) 01:11, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Thus far, Obama has been POTUS less than 1 year, and while he is the CinC in The War Against Terror (as rational as fighting a tactic/strategy might be), it doesn't seem to be that big a defining issue in his overall life. This is a biography, the sum of the person's life. Obama didn't start the war(s), and there are other, arguably larger or more significant, issues that are relevant. The failure of the Bush administration to prevent 9/11, the barking up the wrong tree (Iraq), "Bring 'em on!" and "Mission Accomplished" bravado, failure to pay for the actions (including such stupidity as tax cuts for the rich during time of war, underfunding protective armor, underfunding the VA, etc.) and so on are defining actions and positions of those 8 years. The Bush administration was all about The War Against Terror. Obama's defining actions and positions are yet to be determined, but terrorism isn't but merely one of many issues early in the story. Time will tell. Maybe that's why there's only (1 * terrorism) mention in this article compared to(24 * terrorism) mentions under the terrorism president. --averagejoe (talk) 01:44, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Just to satisfy the editor: terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror. There are 24 occurrences just to give you a warm feeling. On a slightly more serious note, if you have an actual edit proposal, make it! Articles aren't some formal exercise in using some random word a certain number of times (shockingly, BTW, this article uses 'news' 68 times, and yet it is only mentioned twice in George W. Bush... clearly an attempt to cover up the fact Bush was often in the news). If you have an actual useful and relevant sentence that uses the word 'terror', suggest it for addition. Otherwise, perhaps we should close this thread. LotLE×talk 01:24, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Read more times what I've already written, for the first time you could edit to the wars sections that these are war(s) on terrorism. TomasGerbs (talk) 01:27, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

You haven't made a single concrete edit suggestion. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 01:30, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Ok, so add: "Obama is leading two wars on terrorism both in Iraq and in Afghanistan." TomasGerbs (talk) 01:31, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

That looks like a fairly bad edit suggestion, but I'm glad it is actually a suggestion. It suggests a WP:OR characterization of those wars that is unlikely to meet WP:NPOV. Maybe with a citation that uses the language... and if there's some reason it adds something the article doesn't already cover.LotLE×talk

If the grammar is bad then use a better English. Read War on terrorism or other pages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TomasGerbs (talk • contribs) 01:54, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, just because I am a geek, I decided to look at actual word counts:

% histogram GB.txt | grep 'terror' | egrep -v '(url)|(cite)|(ref)' 
terrorist         6
terrorists        4
terrorism         1
terror            1
counterterrorism  1
% histogram BO.txt | grep 'terror' | egrep -v '(url)|(cite)|(ref)' 
terrorism	   2

I don't want to explain the tools too deeply. The last bit is just to ignore somewhat non-relevant occurrences like 'weburlhttpwwwguardiancoukworldfebindiaterrorismtitleCIA', which isn't really a use of 'terror' in a real way. The actual ratio of this arbitrary morpheme is 13:2, not 24:1. LotLE×talk 01:40, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The War Against Terror is really one war being fought on several fronts, including but not limited to Iraq and Afghanistan...and Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Europe, the US, etc. --averagejoe (talk) 01:45, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and the most soldier's death are us troops and iraq/afghan troops and civilians. TomasGerbs (talk) 01:51, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Correct. Your point being.....? What, exactly, does the number of casualties at any given location have to do with the Obama article? When I lived in Germany, there were US and other troops, US and European civilians that were casualties of terrorism there. All that is mentioned in the Ronald Reagan article regarding terrorism is Lybia. In the George H. W. Bush article, terrorism is only mentioned with regard to the Gulf War. They were the presidents when I wore the boots across the pond. --averagejoe (talk) 02:00, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The Afghan and Iraq wars both have there own titled sections of the article. How does adding a single sentence somewhere else give them better coverage here than they already have? --OuroborosCobra (talk) 03:02, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The first time in the article that happens we can read about the Iraq war is on the 8-th page (on a tft monitor), the same happens in the first page of Bush's article. But we can obtain more important informations while we read the Obama's article, like

• Obama's parents met in a Russian class,
• His parents separated when he was two years old and they divorced in 1964
• Suharto, a military leader in Soetoro's home country, came to power in 1967
• Obama's mother returned to Hawaii in 1972

We know every pointless idiotic datas Obama's family, but not know that he leads two wars. TomasGerbs (talk) 08:29, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the first mention is in the table of contents at the very start, since they have their own named sections. That makes it pretty obvious to a reader, at the get go, that they are a big deal. Obama's parents have greater importance to a BIOGRAPPHY of Obama's entire life, what this article is, than a war that didn't even start on Obama's watch, and one that he hasn't been in charge of for even a year of his life. That about 98% of his life, he wasn't in charge of the war, and its impact on his life is not yet known (unlike Bush). You want higher importance? How about going to the article on the Presidency of Barack Obama. That would make sense. As for declaring things pointless, I declare Bush's history in sports team ownerships and his school graduation dates pointless information compared to the enormity of 9/11, yet they all get mentioned before the event that robbed 3000 Americans of their lives. Hell, if anything, it could be argued that the wars are getting better coverage in THIS article than Bush's, after all, they have their own individual sections in this article, and don't in Bush's. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 08:54, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

If you hide the content's block, then you won't see it. And probably the goal here is not that to write about the main issues in the content block, making the best content block on wikipedia. We should write the most important events and details in the first few paragraphs. TomasGerbs (talk) 13:23, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Very biographic bullet points. And....? Currently, he's leading a nation engaged in one war...The War Against Terror. It's being fought on several fronts, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and a bunch of other places. It is but one factoid in his comprehensive biography. The details of said war are best covered in articles specific to the war (or particular theaters of operation, perhaps). Bear in mind, he doesn't lead a war, he leads a nation (at least the executive branch) which is currently at war. Also bear in mind he didn't initiate said war, but inherited it at his inauguration.

"Bear in mind, he doesn't lead a war, he leads a nation (at least the executive branch) which is currently at war." What? The US president is the commander in chief of the United States armed forces. TomasGerbs (talk) 09:54, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

What, exactly, would you have the article say that isn't already covered? Pitch an idea, suggest some wording, propose an edit. Thus far you seem to just be complaining that the article doesn't mention terror enough, without any rationale. --averagejoe (talk) 08:59, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I've made an edit proposal, probably read the whole discussion, and not only the last sentence from it. TomasGerbs (talk) 09:56, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

• "Deadliest year for U.S. troops on Afghan duty: 311 killed in 2009, up from 155 in 2008"

Only this artcile's title should be also good for the article, for reference: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2009/12/29/2009-12-29_deadliest_year_for_us_troops_on_afghan_duty_311_killed_in_2009_up_from_155_in_20.html TomasGerbs (talk) 10:03, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

What does this, an article that does not even mention the president, have to do with this wikipedia article? Tarc (talk) 13:33, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Add the above sentence to the War in Afghanistan section to become the last sentence. You write in that Obama deployed additional 30,000 troops, it would be good for the article to see the result of this decision. Note that Bush's article contains correctly facts about number of lost troops. Without numbers I would say an article's value is pretty low. We can write about long sentences and paragraphs where were Obama's parents and where were they first met, but the value of these informations is pretty low. TomasGerbs (talk) 13:47, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

This is Obama's biography. As such, biographically-relevant stuff that you regard as trivial is actually important. This is not an article about the so-called "war on terror". -- Scjessey (talk) 13:51, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

If you write about he deployed more troops in the article, then I think that we should also write about what happened with them. Above some of you said that he is leading only one war, this is just playing with the words, attempts to decrease of number of wars what is actually two. I see double standard here. TomasGerbs (talk) 14:06, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Your logic is faulty, and the level of detail you are seeking would represent undue weight. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:32, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Record number of dead troops due to Obama's decision in your country is uninteresting fact? TomasGerbs (talk) 14:59, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The deaths are due to President Obama's decision? Come on now. For the record, the troop level increases were approved by both President George W. Bush and President Obama for FYI 2009. As you can see by this chart, the troop levels in Afghanistan increased from 9,700 in December of 2002 to 33,700 in July of 2008. So the progressive increase in troops during FYI 2009(a much larger increase ordered by Obama than Bush, but both had ordered increases) went from 36,000 in January of 2009 to around 68,000 in November of 2009. Which one cannot gain any real conclusion to until after the troop increase is complete and the strategies are implemented. In other words, you cannot attribute the increase in deaths due solely to the increase in troops. If you look at the deaths in Iraq, the amount has been cut in half for 2009(compared to the deaths in 2008), even as the deaths in Afghanistan have doubled. We are not going to play politics with these numbers and list them as blame, or credit, tokens. They are listed in the appropriate articles. As time goes on and the results of the newer actions become evident, then I suppose you will find a better reception in adding something about the troop level increases/decreases and the results of those actions. By the way, your suggestion did not mention the word 'terrorism'.DD2K (talk) 16:04, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand you, just to remind you and other editors, Obama is the potus, and not Bush. I see no option what can/could do Bush in such situation, Obama has the power to recall the troops, but instead of this he increases their numbers so the death of them also. Yes, it doesn't contain the word of terror but it has connection to the wars. TomasGerbs (talk) 16:25, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, if you cannot not understand me, nor the explanations and links I've given, I would suggest that you not edit the English Wikipedia and move to the Wiki version of your native language. That also is true if you just want to make broad generalizations and offer nothing constructive on talk pages of articles. I've given you a detailed explanation on troop levels in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the US deaths in those two theaters. The troop level increase did not begin in full until November of 2009, and a portion of the increase was approved by the previous administration. There is no way to gauge the result of a troop increase that was implemented, and is still not complete, less than 2 months ago. If you cannot understand that, then it's probably time for you to move on to another article.DD2K (talk) 16:49, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, DD2K. You've done a nice job of explaining the situation. Simple number of troops has little to do with casualty rates. It doesn't differentiate between types of troops (infantry, logistics, communications, special ops, etc), where and how they are deployed, what missions they are given, etc. Recently, several CIA (intelligence) civilians were killed by a suicide bomber during an intel operation....how would that factor in with troop deployments. Many civilians were killed on US soil on 9/11 when we had no troops deployed. The attempted attack by the underwear bomber on 12/25 invloved no troops, nor did it involve the countries TomasGerbs is concerned with....where does that factor in?

Again, we are currently fighting *ONE* war, on many different fronts in this current war....just as in WII we fought one world war against several participants (including Germany, Italy, Japan, etc) on many fronts in several theaters. Examples of different wars would be the US-Panamanian conflict (where we sought to depose a drug lord), Grenada, Desert Storm, etc....all fought not only in different locations but also for very different and unrelated underlying reasons, using different methods, strategies and tactics.

TomasGerbs doesn't seem to understand how the US conducts war, and I'm guessing there is little practical experience on warfare on his part. He seems like a typical civilian, with a lack of understanding compounded by a language barrier, further compounded by a desire to push a POV. Can we move on to something relevant now? --averagejoe (talk) 18:17, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Despite the unhelpful start by the editor who engaged in somewhat silly (and not even accurate) word counts as if that was content discussion, I think TomasGerbs actually has a fairly good suggestion at this point. It feels like much of the reaction now is a bit of knee-jerk defense of Obama, rather than really good for article content.

In particular, this rhetoric about "one war (on terrrorism)" certainly plays well among American voters who are nationalistic boosterist ("my country right or wrong", etc). However, as a matter of plain fact and international law, the claim is false. It is a false claim frequently stated by the previous administration, and stated somewhat less incessantly by this administration. But in both cases, it is a matter of political pandering, not encyclopedic neutrality, and we should generally not include it (certainly not outside of direct quotes).

Moreover, war casualties are clearly part of war (if not the whole of it). And Obama did make rather a big deal of long deliberations leading to an increase in US troops in Afghanistan (and a decrease of those in Iraq). A few words tying those policy decisions to their effects and the status of these wars feels needed. Something characterizing the trends of civilian and combatant deaths during the dates when Obama increased troop levels in one war, and decreased them in another would be relevant framing. LotLE×talk 19:37, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

In that case, hop on over to Franklin D. Roosevelt and make sure his article mentions the almost 500,000 US military personnel who died in WW2 because of decisions he made as the CinC. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:51, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

While I do support "My country, right or wrong" because it is MY country, I am quick to exercise my First Amendment rights to criticize my country when it does wrong. The fiasco that Bush got us into with Iraq had nothing to do with The War Against Terror. It was about regime change, and revenge (he was looking for the man who tried to shoot his pa). We're no longer seeking to oust Saddam (which, IMHO, could very well be considered war crimes committed by the Bush Cheney administration, and I would have no problem seeing the appropriate very high level nutters prosecuted) and take over the country. That war is over, and has been for some time. The current activities there are a part of the war against terrorism, just as WWII had been over for many years I was stationed in Germany, when I had to face terrorists....the Red Army Faction weren't part of WWII. The current war is one large war at this point, with several fronts/theaters. I don't say this as a US "nationalistic boosterist" or neo-con chickenhawk, but as someone who has spent much of his life involved with both tactics and strategy of war.

Do bear in mind, this is a biography, not an article on this (or any) war. Due weight should bee considered in the entirety of the person, not the hot-button issue of the day. --averagejoe (talk) 20:05, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, as I already have pointed out, the drastic troop increases began in November of 2009, that's less than 2 months ago. How can we gauge the 'results' of that action right now? Especially given the fact that the troop increases will keep up until 2011. But if you want the statistics, here they are. In Afghanistan the US deaths in November of 2009 were 18, down from 59 in October of 2009, and in December the US deaths were at 20. As you can see from the graph here, there were 210 US deaths in the 5 months prior to the November 2009(an average of 42 a month) troop increase, and 38 deaths in the 2 months preceding(for an average of 19). In Iraq, the total number of Coalition deaths in 2008 was 322, for an average of 27 per month. In 2009(after the troop decrease) the total for the year was 151, for an average of under 13 per month. In both cases the deaths per month decreased by over half. Frankly, I don't see how this belongs in the Barack Obama article and think it's absurd. But there you go. It's a far cry from a 'knee jerk defense of Obama', and more about reality and what does and does not belong in this article. And frankly, with the amount of cuts you have made from the article in recent weeks, it surprises me that you would suggest otherwise.DD2K (talk) 20:28, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Added to make clear that my last edit had an edit conflict with the removal a racist line. It looks like I added it, but did not.DD2K (talk) 20:43, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

It looks like for me that is an original research. I'm not a soldier, but from the graph it looks like for me that in winter there are less military actions because in every year in winter there are less deaths, so seeing the deaths/month rate in different time periods is pointless. The deaths/year corrects these effects. And from that we can see that in the first year of Obama's administration it is doubled. TomasGerbs (talk) 20:49, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

• ""terror" is a word to avoid" (Scjessey)
• "you are seeking would represent undue weight" (Scjessey)
• "As time goes on and the results of the newer actions become evident.." (DD2K)
• "Due weight should bee considered in the entirety..." (averagejoe)
• "How can we gauge the 'results' of that action right now?" (DD2K)

I'm not surprised that the only super-light critics is the last last but one sentence from article. TomasGerbs (talk) 21:03, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Specific language

A couple notes: (1) Per several posters, including my own prior note, "terror(ism)" is a loaded term which we should generally avoid. Its use (including or especially in the phrase "War on Terror") generally indicates a rhetorical purpose rather than any factual one. (2) Per DD2K, I definitely do not want any big expansion of this article; the most I might propose is adding a clause (or at the outside, a short sentence) for this stuff.

We now have this sentence:

On December 1, Obama announced that he would deploy an additional 30,000 soldiers over a period of six months.

I think it could be framed a bit with something like:

Following a year in which US military deaths doubled([74]?) and Afghani civilian deaths increased dramatically([75]?), on December 1, Obama announced that he would deploy an additional 30,000 soldiers over a period of six months.

Those are somewhat hastily chosen possible citations, but those rough facts seem well supportable. We don't want to make a conclusion about whether the troop increase was the right or wrong response to the state of the war, but providing a clause indicating the general state is germane. LotLE×talk 21:38, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Btw. To counter the addition of a few words, I think we should lose the last sentence of that same paragraph:

The following day, Gen. McChrystal cautioned that the timeline was flexible and “is not an absolute”.

McChrystal's opinion/goal is politically interesting, no doubt, but it's not about Obama as such. LotLE×talk 21:49, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

That is a good proposal. Just to see the numbers I've found an interesting data on that page: us troops deaths in 2008 is: 314 (in Iraq)+155 (in Afghanistan)=469, in 2009 this is: 150 (in Iraq)+319 (in Afghanistan)=469. Equal, it is also a good comparison of the two president's talent. TomasGerbs (talk) 00:18, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

What? You cannot use the deaths of military personnel as a metric for measuring the talent of a POTUS, or for comparing one with another. That's absolutely ridiculous. -- Scjessey (talk) 00:43, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I strongly object to the idea that this article should be discussing the increase or decrease of military deaths. Specifics like these are more suitable for the articles on the events in question, not this biography. -- Scjessey (talk) 00:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I have no problem with the numbers in and of themselves, but this is certainly *not* a good comparison of these presidents or their talents. It's a Post hoc ergo propter hoc argument. Also, you're only considering deaths. How about wounded, civilian deaths and casualties, physical damage, political damage, and so on. You may be a math major, but I'd recommend you take some basic instruction in logic and rhetoric before presenting such....whatever it was. Certainly you weren't taught this in any credible university, gymnasium, or other credible educational institution. --averagejoe (talk) 00:48, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

You are using again double standard by searching properties in which Obama is better than Bush. That's ridiculous. And we don't know those numbers for the last two months from the previous year, but probably they are very close, why would they different when the number of deaths is the same? Doctors are probably the same. TomasGerbs (talk) 01:04, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

This isn't Bush vs. Obama Celebrity Deathmatch. This article is not about Bush, or what Bush did, or what Bush did that is different to what Obama has done. This is a biography about Obama. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:08, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

You're correct. The article is about Obama. And about his big family. TomasGerbs (talk) 01:13, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

His what? Would you care to explain what you mean by that? -- Scjessey (talk) 01:33, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm beginning to object to that editor working on this article at all. --averagejoe (talk) 00:50, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm working on it, but you are only attacking me. TomasGerbs (talk) 01:09, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

No, I'm attacking your logical fallacies, your apparent persistence at pushing a POV, and your continuing failure to address the points raised in opposition to your silliness, and your failure to understand the difference between what is biographical about a person and what is more appropriately covered in other, relevant, articles. --averagejoe (talk) 01:23, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Can we come a bit back down to the ground here. The edit I suggest above isn't about Bush vs. Obama Celebrity Deathmatch (cute phrase though). I just think that the context of the escalation of the conflict in Afghanistan prior to Obama's troop increase is biographically relevant, as a matter of understanding the action itself. Numbers of deaths isn't the only possible context, but it is a pretty good marker for all the other context (in every war there are more injuries than deaths, on all sides, but there is a roughly scaling factor between them). In some wars, territorial control or access to resources driving the conflict are key context, but neither of those really apply to the US-Afghanistan war. If we present Obama's political decision on troop levels at all, the trends of the war leading to that action are relevant to the same degree as the decision itself. LotLE×talk 01:36, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

The increase in troop levels is the result of a specific, goal-seeking strategy. It bears no relation whatsoever to the number of US military casualties (or indeed any casualties), so it makes no sense for that to be the context. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:39, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

This particular war makes less sense to measure on a number-of-troops-killed basis, and the scaling between wounds-vs-kills changes significantly depending on the type of attack, offensive-vs-defensive actions, etc. It's not an adequate or appropriate measure of success or failure. Otherwise, we'd have to measure the Cold War by some very small numbers indeed....and the Underwear Bomber attack must be considered a failure as it resulted in ZERO deaths (but anyone aware of how terrorism's impact is really measured would know it was very successful). Bad metrics are worse than no metrics. --averagejoe (talk) 01:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm troubled that LotLE has gone ahead and stuck this language into the article despite clear objections here. Lulu, please explain what the troop increase has to do with the number of deaths. Your explanation can follow your self-revert. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:53, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Didn't know we'd achieved consensus on the edit to the article. Did I miss some hidden comments? --averagejoe (talk) 01:56, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Do you have in mind some other context that you perceive as more relevant to the troop escalation? I have not seen anything suggested here, but if there is something, I might be very happy to use that instead. Is there some claim made by Obama about territory controlled by coalition versus Taliban? Or some stated policy goal that he said would be accomplished by the higher troop levels? Or anything else that provides context? As it read previously, it suggests that the increase was just randomly done, with no thought or motivation relating to any fact about the war, which reads badly, and does not even give any reason why the troop numbers should be included at all. LotLE×talk 02:01, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't have a source to hand, but I was under the impression that the increase was based on advice from his Cabinet and the military, with the specific goal of trying to bring the situation to a close, much like the Iraq "surge". -- Scjessey (talk) 02:05, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Not off the top of my head, but making it look like it was done solely because of body count is disingenuous, misleading, editorializing, etc. It could also have been written as "During a year in which corn yields in Iowa were at record levels...." and be just as accurate. Get the idea? Now, please revert until we find actual, real, no-shit reasons and consensus is reached. --averagejoe (talk) 02:14, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

And, we haven't even reached consensus that the numbers are relevant to this BIOGRAPHY. Only seems to be one self-proclaimed math wonk that's really pushing that issue, and he continues to be unable to defend his own position (perhaps due to not understanding the language).--averagejoe (talk) 02:17, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Whoa, whoa, are you kidding here Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters? The association of the troop increase being in reaction to the deaths(military or civilian) in Afghanistan is only slightly less incorrect/absurd than the claims made by TomasGerbs that the deaths have a direct relation to the troop increase. First of all, President Obama made it abuntantly clear during both the Democratic Primaries and the Presidential election that he was going to focus the war effort in Afghanistan, calling it a 'war of necessity' and the focal point for the defeat 'terrorist al-Qaida network'. All this well before the rise in death toll in Afghanistan. In fact, President Obama met with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen before he even took office and Mullen described what he told Obama and what Obama told him. In fact, he declared that during Obama's first 12-18 months in office that "We’re going to add those forces over the next 12 to 18 months...we’re gonna go from a current 32,000 up to as many as 60,000,". So I would appreciate if you would remove the insinuation that you included in the article. It's not factual. DD2K (talk) 02:53, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I took care of the revert. Needed to be done. How impetuous of me....much like the edit itself. --averagejoe (talk) 03:12, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Poorly sourced bit removed pending further discussion

I removed this bit:

Early in his presidency, Obama moved to alter U.S. war strategy in Iraq by planning to decrease troop levels.

It is sourced to an interview of Obama.

ref name="autogenerated1"Obama Calls for U.S. Military to Renew Focus on Afghanistan /ref

This isn't adequate for a statement of fact of this type. I'm also concerned about the accuracy, since I think the drawdown of troops was already planned (and underway?) before Obama took office. Can someone find a better source(s) and propose an accurate description of events based on them? ChildofMidnight (talk) 04:48, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we need to replace it. It doesn't contribute anything the next two sentences don't. Grsz¹¹ 04:54, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, it is a minor bit of information that does not really help the rest of the paragraph. Brothejr (talk) 09:59, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Obama: 'System failed' in a major way

Closed - Editor who started thread indef blocked for being yet another sock puppet of Multiplyperfect -- Scjessey (talk) 01:50, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/05/obama.terror.meeting/index.html This is a good critics from Obama. Edit it to the article. TomasGerbs (talk) 00:45, 6 January 2010 (UTC) Jeez. How long are we all going to pretend this isn't another sock of Multiplyperfect? -- Scjessey (talk) 00:51, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Health care reform

Is it possible to make the section on health care reform more encyclopedic? It doesn't seem to say anything specific about the reform plan or what it actually entails (although it notes his support for a public option, which I don't think is in the legislation any more?). This is a fairly substantial issue in his presidency and it think would be helpful to get beyond the rather hollow "reform" language that isn't particularly informative. ChildofMidnight (talk) 03:26, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Maybe when a Bill is passed and signed something more can be added. As for the public option, the House passed a Bill with that included, the Senate did not. They are currently meeting and discussing how to reconcile the two Bills. Also, the section doesn't seem 'hollow' to me, especially since there has been no final passage. DD2K (talk) 03:54, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Details are [or should be, didn't check the sub] covered in the main articles. Going into details would only double or even triple the size of Obama's bio and undue comes into mind (for his bio). Unless you have one or two major points that can be addressed here with one or two short sentences it's moot. Do you have a specific proposal to add?The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 03:54, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. Obama's health care proposals are his signature legislative endeavor so far and something he campaigned on. Including only the meaningless platitude about "reform" isn't helpful. An encyclopedia article needs to say the key elements of what his reform proposal entails. There's lots of minor legislation noted throughout the article, so it's kind of amazing that this signature legislation isn't spelled out more. ChildofMidnight (talk) 04:53, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

You strongly disagree to what exactly? I made it clear in my post that one or two short sentences which of course should be about the "key elements of what his reform proposal entails" could and should be included. And I said "one or two short sentences" (additional to what we have know) are warranted in my opinion till the "final draft" of a bill is passed.The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 05:44, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Fantastic. We see eye to eye as usual. I'd just like have some substance and specifics included since it's such an important and notable issue. If someone else wants to come up with proposed wording and a couple sources that would be great, otherwise I'm happy to take a stab at it. ChildofMidnight (talk) 05:49, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Then take a "stab" at it, preferable here on the talk page but that's your decision.The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 06:02, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, making suggestions on the talk page is part of the process, so have at it. Personally, I don't know why we have a play-by-play of what has been happening in the Congress, and not a description of what they are working on. If someone wants to add the description(making it illegal for insurance companies to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, putting caps on health care payments, etc), along with the plan to reduce costs by including a 'public option' and modernizing how health care providers/insurers conduct business, then we should get rid of the play-by-play until a final Bill is passed and signed. DD2K (talk) 13:51, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay, so I tried to find a good source with the key components (I thought Obama layed out 10 or so criteria that he said needed to be met?), but I couldn't find a good one. Using this source from the New York Times [76], I think something along the lines of:

Obama has called for reforms to expand health insurance coverage to the uninsured in a $900 billion over 10 years plan that includes a government insurance plan (option) to compete with the private sector, makes it illegal for insurers to drop sick people or deny them coverage for pre-existing conditions, and requires every American carry health coverage. The plan also includes medical spending cuts and taxes on insurance companies that offer expensive plans. ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:09, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Iraq

In reviewing the Iraq section I noticed that it focuses on the pledge to end combat operations in 18 months. To the average reader I believe this gives the impression that all (or most) of U.S. troops will be withdrawn by that date, but I believe the plan is for 10s of thousands to remain in Iraq beyond that date (I believe the 50,000 figure was put out?). Is a clarification needed? ChildofMidnight (talk) 03:41, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps if you want to mention that a "transitional force of 35,000 to 50,000" will remain but they "will change their mission from combat to training, equipping, and advising Iraqi security forces; counter-terrorism", and that all troops will be withdrawn by the end of 2011, it would be appropriate. DD2K (talk) 03:58, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

What DD2K said and: Some update is warranted after 18 month have past although it could be mentioned that he left himself a "back door" by considering change to the pace if needed [not making final decisions as with time, things over there can change].The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 04:15, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

That would be fine DD2K. To the casual reader I believe the content as written is misleading, or at least incomplete, as it conveys the message that the U.S. will be out of Iraq, essentially, in 18 months. Having 50,000 troops there is still a very substantial committment. If you could add on the bit you mention I think that would be very helpful. ChildofMidnight (talk) 04:54, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Then clarify it in the article or even better, propose a change in wording here on the talkpage. I'm with you when it comes to the spirit of your proposal.The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 05:59, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

 Done I used the source and stuck pretty close to the wording suggested above by DD2K. ChildofMidnight (talk) 07:06, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I took out "expected" since it's the plan. Otherwise it looks fine to me.The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 07:16, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

It would also be nice if editors avoid unnecessary provocations in edit summaries. Tarc (talk) 12:57, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks for the help MC-k. I think it's much more encyclopedic and informative now. Cheers. ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:52, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

• Looks good to me, but I added the starting drawdown number. DD2K (talk) 13:55, 7 January 2010 (UTC)