This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourcedmust be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page.
This article has not yet been rated on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:
This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourcedmust be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Chicago, which aims to improve all articles or pages related to Chicago or the Chicago metropolitan area.ChicagoWikipedia:WikiProject ChicagoTemplate:WikiProject ChicagoChicago articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Barack Obama, a project which is currently considered to be inactive.Barack ObamaWikipedia:WikiProject Barack ObamaTemplate:WikiProject Barack ObamaBarack Obama articles
The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information.
The Other WIlliam Ayers
In the 23 August 2011 New York TImes was an Associated Press report that a therapist William Ayers (age 79) was ruled incompetent to stand trial in California for child molestation. He suffers from dementia. Just saying... Paul, in Saudi (talk) 15:49, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I just want to point out....even those who supposedly "praise" Ayers don't nessesarily "praise" his past actions, so that section is pretty misleading.70.48.210.150 (talk) 08:23, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Disputed content
Recently several editors seem to be attempting to edit war a coatrack of contentious material into this article.[1] The source is a long new anti-Obama screed written for the partisan magazine American Spectator by its publisher. Under guise of having conducted an "investigation" the piece rehashes many anti-Obama talking points from the 2008 US presidential election, in particular the "Obama pals around with terrorists" Bill Ayers presidential election controversy smear, before concluding that both Ayers and Obama "lied outright" in downplaying their relationship. The tone and approach of the article are clearly an expression of opinion. It is clearly not a news piece, and by its own admission it contradicts the "mainstream" media account. The proposed addition includes 14 citations to the piece, which is certainly over the top. Any experienced editor ought to know better than that, and also better than reverting contentious BLP materials with a demand that others have to justify their removal. My review is that because the piece is not a reliable source, any contentious claim it makes about Ayers or Obama would have to be credited, reviewed by terms, and verified for weight and relevancy by a third party mention of the article. We don't have that, and even if we did, this apparent attempt by a conservative magazine to resurrect old campaign attacks is best covered in the article about these campaign attacks. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:20, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Why the spurious accusation? I'll toss one right back, WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, as I gave specific reasons immediately above: (1) the piece is partisan, (2) it is an opinion piece, not a news story, (3) it is out of the mainstream, (4) the conclusions (calling people liars, impugning their character by association) are not the business of reliable journalists; (5) it is plainly a rehashing of an old controversy, not an "investigation" as claimed; and (6) it if full of material that more mainstream sources say is untrue. Meanwhile, when three editors suddenly show up to a quiet biography page about a once-controversial person to edit war *fourteen* badly formatted citations to a brand new hit piece on Obama from a third tier source, all the while leaving ridiculous warning templates[2] and making plainly incorrect references to Wikipedia policy on consensus,[3][4][5] something other than productive encyclopedia editing is going on. If you think something about this source deserves a mention, please state your reasons why the source is reliable, relevant, and of due weight for this article. If any of the factual claims cited to this article are true and worth noting here, surely other sources have covered them. Where are they? - Wikidemon (talk) 05:57, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ism Schism, if you're not going to make any arguments for inclusion or respond to any of Wikidemon's points, then WP:BURDEN alone indicates that the material must stay out of the article (never mind that it violates WP:BLP, WP:NPOV, etc.) --Loonymonkey (talk) 14:44, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Any "liars" comments should be removed from BLPs, but in this case most of the information that has been removed from the article is sourced by reliable sources. As such, it should not have been removed - only edited. Thanks. Ism schism (talk) 22:33, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
None of the assertions in the article are a radial departure from the accepted view. They served on boards together, they worked at ACORN at the same time, and, of course, were both involved in Chicago politics together. The section, in its current form, reads like an Obama apology. Let's work on including some alternative POV instead of just dismissing the Obama-Ayers controversy. One suggestion would be a section allowing for this viewpoint to be expressed.Tommyboy1215 (talk) 16:19, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
