Talk:Barack Obama
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Frequently asked questions
Family and religious background Q1: Why isn't Barack Obama's Muslim heritage or education included in this article?
A1: Barack Obama was never a practitioner of Islam. His biological father having been "raised as a Muslim" but being a "confirmed atheist" by the time Obama was born is mentioned in the article. Please see this article on Snopes.com for a fairly in-depth debunking of the myth that Obama is Muslim. Barack Obama did not attend an Islamic or Muslim school while living in Indonesia age 6–10, but Roman Catholic and secular public schools. See [1], [2], [3] The sub-articles Public image of Barack Obama and Barack Obama religion conspiracy theories address this issue. Q2: The article refers to him as African American, but his mother is white and his black father was not an American. Should he be called African American, or something else ("biracial", "mixed", "Kenyan-American", "mulatto", "quadroon", etc.)?
A2: Obama himself and the media identify him, the vast majority of the time, as African American or black. African American is primarily defined as "citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa", a statement that accurately describes Obama and does not preclude or negate origins in the white populations of America as well. Thus we use the term African American in the introduction, and address the specifics of his parentage in the first headed section of the article. Many individuals who identify as black have varieties of ancestors from many countries who may identify with other racial or ethnic groups. See our article on race for more information on this concept. We could call him the first "biracial" candidate or the first "half black half white" candidate or the first candidate with a parent born in Africa, but Wikipedia is a tertiary source which reports what other reliable sources say, and most of those other sources say "first African American". Readers will learn more detail about his ethnic background in the article body. Q3: Why can't we use his full name outside of the lead? It's his name, isn't it?
A3: The relevant part of the Manual of Style says that outside the lead of an article on a person, that person's conventional name is the only one that's appropriate. (Thus one use of "Richard Milhous Nixon" in the lead of Richard Nixon, "Richard Nixon" thereafter.) Talk page consensus has also established this. Q4: Why is Obama referred to as "Barack Hussein Obama II" in the lead sentence rather than "Barack Hussein Obama, Jr."? Isn't "Jr." more common?
A4: Although "Jr." is typically used when a child shares the name of his or her parent, "II" is considered acceptable, as well. And in Obama's case, the usage on his birth certificate is indeed "II", and is thus the form used at the beginning of this article, per manual of style guidelines on names. Q5: Why don't we cover the claims that Obama is not a United States citizen, his birth certificate was forged, he was not born in Hawaii, he is ineligible to be President, etc?
A5: The Barack Obama article consists of an overview of major issues in the life and times of the subject. The controversy over his eligibility, citizenship, birth certificate etc is currently a fairly minor issue in overall terms, and has had no significant legal or mainstream political impact. It is therefore not currently appropriate for inclusion in an overview article. These claims are covered separately in Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories. Controversies, praise, and criticism Q6: Why isn't there a criticisms/controversies section?
A6: Because a section dedicated to criticisms and controversies is no more appropriate than a section dedicated solely to praise and is an indication of a poorly written article. Criticisms/controversies/praises should be worked into the existing prose of the article, per the Criticism essay. Q7: Why isn't a certain controversy/criticism/praise included in this article?
A7: Wikipedia's Biography of living persons policy says that "[c]riticism and praise of the subject should be represented if it is relevant to the subject's notability and can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, and so long as the material is written in a manner that does not overwhelm the article or appear to take sides; it needs to be presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a neutral, encyclopedic tone." Criticism or praise that cannot be reliably sourced cannot be placed in a biography. Also, including everything about Obama in a single article would exceed Wikipedia's article size restrictions. A number of sub-articles have been created and some controversies/criticisms/praises have been summarized here or been left out of this article altogether, but are covered in some detail in the sub-articles. Q8: But this controversy/criticism/praise is all over the news right now! It should be covered in detail in the main article, not buried in a sub-article!
A8: Wikipedia articles should avoid giving undue weight to something just because it is in the news right now. If you feel that the criticism/controversy/praise is not being given enough weight in this article, you can try to start a discussion on the talk page about giving it more. See WP:BRD. Q9: This article needs much more (or much less) criticism/controversy.
A9: Please try to assume good faith. Like all articles on Wikipedia, this article is a work in progress so it is possible for biases to exist at any point in time. If you see a bias that you wish to address, you are more than welcome to start a new discussion, or join in an existing discussion, but please be ready to provide sources to support your viewpoint and try to keep your comments civil. Starting off your discussion by accusing the editors of this article of having a bias is the quickest way to get your comment ignored. Talk and article mechanics Q10: This article is over 275kb long, and the article size guideline says that it should be broken up into sub-articles. Why hasn't this happened?
A10: The restriction mentioned in WP:SIZE is 60kB of readable prose, not the byte count you see when you open the page for editing. As of May 11, 2016, this article had about 10,570 words of readable prose (65 kB according to prosesize tool), only slightly above the guideline. The rest is mainly citations and invisible comments, which do not count towards the limit. Q11: I notice this FAQ mentions starting discussions or joining in on existing discussions a lot. If Wikipedia is supposed to be the encyclopedia anyone can edit, shouldn't I just be bold and fix any biases that I see in the article?
A11: It is true that Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit and no one needs the permission of other editors of this article to make changes to it. But Wikipedia policy is that, "While the consensus process does not require posting to the discussion page, it can be useful and is encouraged." This article attracts editors that have very strong opinions about Obama (positive and negative) and these editors have different opinions about what should and should not be in the article, including differences as to appropriate level of detail. As a result of this it may be helpful, as a way to avoid content disputes, to seek consensus before adding contentious material to or removing it from the article. Q12: The article/talk page has been vandalized! Why hasn't anyone fixed this?
A12: Many editors watch this article, and it is unlikely that vandalism would remain unnoticed for long. It is possible that you are viewing a cached result of the article; If so, try bypassing your cache. Q13: Why are so many discussions closed so quickly?
A13: Swift closure is common for topics that have already been discussed repeatedly, topics pushing fringe theories, and topics that would lead to violations of Wikipedia's policy concerning biographies of living persons, because of their disruptive nature and the unlikelihood that consensus to include the material will arise from the new discussion. In those cases, editors are encouraged to read this FAQ for examples of such common topics. Q14: I added new content to the article, but it was removed!
A14: Double-check that your content addition is not sourced to an opinion blog, editorial, or non-mainstream news source. Wikipedia's policy on biographies of living persons states, in part, "Material about living persons must be sourced very carefully. Without reliable third-party sources, it may include original research and unverifiable statements, and could lead to libel claims." Sources of information must be of a very high quality for biographies. While this does not result in an outright ban of all blogs and opinion pieces, most of them are regarded as questionable. Inflammatory or potentially libelous content cited to a questionable source will be removed immediately without discussion. Q15: I disagree with the policies and content guidelines that prevent my proposed content from being added to the article.
A15: That's understandable. Wikipedia is a work in progress. If you do not approve of a policy cited in the removal of content, it's possible to change it. Making cogent, logical arguments on the policy's talk page is likely to result in a positive alteration. This is highly encouraged. However, this talk page is not the appropriate place to dispute the wording used in policies and guidelines. If you disagree with the interpretation of a policy or guideline, there is also recourse: Dispute resolution. Using the dispute resolution process prevents edit wars, and is encouraged. Q16: I saw someone start a discussion on a topic raised by a blog/opinion piece, and it was reverted!
A16: Unfortunately, due to its high profile, this talk page sees a lot of attempts to argue for policy- and guideline-violating content – sometimes the same violations many times a day. These are regarded as disruptive, as outlined above. Consensus can change; material previously determined to be unacceptable may become acceptable. But it becomes disruptive and exhausting when single-purpose accounts raise the same subject(s) repeatedly in the apparent hopes of overcoming significant objections by other editors. Editors have reached a consensus for dealing with this behavior:
Other Q17: Why aren't the 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns covered in more detail?
A17: They are, in sub-articles called Barack Obama 2008 presidential campaign and Barack Obama 2012 presidential campaign. Things that are notable in the context of the presidential campaigns, but are of minimal notability to Barack Obama's overall biography, belong in the sub-articles. Campaign stops, the presidential debates, and the back-and-forth accusations and claims of the campaigns can all be found there. |
Template:Community article probation
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Index 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80 81, 82, 83 |
Historical diffs, Weight, Race |
This page has archives. Sections older than 5 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III. |
Fixing template-size error with Cite_quick
05 October 2012: I have checked to see that the fast Template:Cite_quick (created 2 months ago) can be used to handle the wp:CS1-style citations in this article, and stop the error "template include size is too large". During testing, all other templates (and navboxes) have fit, so the use of {cite_quick} will solve the template-size error, plus allow another 500 citations to be added, and many could even use the original {cite_web} or {cite_journal} templates if needed. The edit-preview time will drop from about a 40-second delay to only an 11-second reformat. If there are no other concerns, then I will switch to use {cite_quick} later this evening, when there are few other changes in progress. -Wikid77 (talk) 21:47, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
- You know very well, per the deletion discussion concerning this template, that it is only for testing and should not be deployed in article space, so should be removed from here. Please undo your change, as it has also broken many of the references.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 20:51, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
- Entire article was broken, rejecting 14 templates, so compromise: This is a compromise to get the entire article to display. Prior to the use of the fast {cite_quick} template, the entire article was broken (see prior revision: oldid=516263945), where it died on the final 14 templates. Two entire bottom navboxes could not display ( {US Presidents} & Election 2012), nor the Authority control, nor the {Persondata}, nor even the featured-article link; all the following templates were broken by the excessive total include-size:
- Now, the entire article will reformat, to display all other templates and navboxes, and edit-preview within 11 seconds, rather than 40. The template {cite_quick} is a compromise to allow wp:CS1 citation templates in very large articles, and contrary to incorrect claims, it was not discussed during the July 15 deletion discussion, but rather came as a later compromise. I have changed the journal cites to show volume and issue numbers, and any other formatting issues can be discussed. Also, other CS1 templates can still be used in the article, such as adding new cites by {cite web} or {cite press release}. Again, this is a compromise, to allow all templates to fit together, while we work to improve the article's content as well. -Wikid77 (talk) 08:43, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
- JohnBlackburne is correct. You are being wilfully disruptive. You've been told time and again the people think your test templates should only serve to help improve the standard citation templates, and you won't do that. Instead, you disrupt articles, and suck peoples' time. You should be blocked for this, and my yet be. I've remove your test template for this page. I know that it's a tad over the template expansion size. The solution to that is to cut some of the over-citation that is present in this article (cf Wikipedia:Citation overkill). Over-done navboxes such as {{United States presidential election, 2012}} are not helping any, either. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 16:23, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
- No consensus to break navboxes & Persondata again: This article is involved in a featured-article review, and was specifically fixed to reformat all bottom templates, including 3 navboxes, {Persondata}, Authority control, and the FA/GA interwiki links to the other-language wikipedias. Please do not break the article again without prior consensus. Already, people have expressed favor to have the entire article fit within the page limits, without worrying about the template-size errors. Please respect that result. To reformat the entire article, then prior consensus is needed, such as by showing a userfied version which formats without breaking the bottom 14 templates. Thank you. -Wikid77 (talk) 05:19, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
- Reverted you. You've been enjoined from deploying your experimental templates into articles. You'll be blocked for disruption should you persist. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 06:37, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
- a note; I've reviewed the differences in the rendered output; there are many. There are a great many punctuation and positioning anomalies, but there are as many serious omissions of data; missing editors, quotes, agencies, journal names, &c. Your template is not fit; it is outright broken. I may not be used in articles. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 07:50, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
I have no opinion on the template itself, because I haven't taken the time to look at it, but I do know this: you two need to stop edit warring on this immediately. It's making it very difficult to follow changes in this article. —Kerfuffler thunder
plunder 12:08, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
Ancestry
Where does this belong? In the main article, or in one of its own? --Pawyilee (talk) 05:58, 7 October 2012 (UTC) Researchers at Ancestry.com say President Barack Obama is the 11th great-grandson of the first African man to be declared a slave in America, according to CBS News.
- Reads like a bit of interesting trivia to me. It's not clear how many other people exist with the same status. He wouldn't be the only one. Maybe there's thousands of 'em. Not sure if it belongs in the article. HiLo48 (talk) 06:07, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
Is it true that...
WP:FORUM |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
...Barack Obama has personally asked for Russell Elton to be Australias Ambassador to the U.S.? I heard a whisper that the friendship between Barack Obama and Russell Elton has gotten to the point where Barack has asked Julia Gillard to send Russ to the U.S.A! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wombatsrule (talk • contribs) 05:56, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
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