Talk:John McCain

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Frequently asked questions

Q1:Why does this article cover up the fact that McCain has called Asians "gooks" and made other similar remarks?

A1:Nothing is being covered up. This article is written according to summary style which requires that material in other articles is only summarized here in this article. The information about McCain's use of the term "gook" is discussed in the articles on John McCain 2000 presidential campaign and Cultural and political image of John McCain. Many other controversial remarks by McCain are detailed in the latter article. The "gook" comment was narrowly used by McCain with reference to the specific people who captured and then tortured him in Vietnam; McCain stopped using the term in 2000, and many Asians did not mind him narrowly using the term in the way he did. Singling out this remark for inclusion in this article would give it undue weight, and providing the necessary background and context would also take up too much space in this article. This issue was previously discussed in March, May, and June of 2008.

Q2: Where is X? It is a well-known development in McCain's life.

A2: As stated above, this article uses summary style; think of it as an executive summary of McCain. Much more information about McCain's life, military career, political career, and persona is included in the McCain biographical subarticles shown in the navigational box: Early life and military career of John McCain, House and Senate career of John McCain, 1982–1999, John McCain 2000 presidential campaign, Senate career of John McCain, 2001–present, John McCain 2008 presidential campaign, and Cultural and political image of John McCain.

Q3: Which of these is the subarticle that lists his controversies?

A3: None of them. All such material (such as his role in the Keating Five, for example) is included in the normal biographical sections they occur in, in this article and in the various subarticles. Having a separate "controversies" or "criticisms" article or section is considered a violation of WP:NPOV, WP:Content forking, and WP:Criticism. A special effort was undertaken to rid all 2008 presidential candidates' articles of such treatment — see here.

Q4: This article is not neutral! It's biased {for, against} him! It reads like it was written by {his PR team, Democratic hatchet men}!

A4: Complaints of bias are taken seriously, but must be accompanied by very specific areas of concern or suggestions for change. Vague, general statements such as these are of no help to editors; we can't read your mind.

Q5: The section on his presidential campaign leaves out important developments. What gives?

A5: The main article's presidential campaign section is intentionally brief. The subarticle John McCain 2008 presidential campaign has a much fuller treatment of the campaign and that is where most new additions should go.

Q6: Something in the lead (introductory) section doesn't have a footnote. I'm going to put a {{fact}} tag on it right now.

A6: This article (like many others) uses the approach that there are no citations in the lead section, because everything in the lead is also found in the body of the article along with its citation.

John McCain is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on November 4, 2008.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
December 6, 2006	WikiProject peer review	Reviewed
March 5, 2008	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
April 18, 2008	Good article nominee	Listed
May 22, 2008	Peer review	Reviewed
July 3, 2008	Good article reassessment	Kept
August 18, 2008	Featured article candidate	Promoted
November 4, 2008	Today's featured article	Main Page
Current status: Featured article

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This page is about an active politician who is running for office or has recently run for office, is in office and campaigning for re-election, or is involved in some current political conflict or controversy. Because of this, this article is at increased risk of biased editing, talk-page trolling, and simple vandalism.

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 sourced must 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 page is about an active politician who is running for office or has recently run for office, is in office and campaigning for re-election, or is involved in some current political conflict or controversy. Because of this, this article is at increased risk of biased editing, talk-page trolling, and simple vandalism.

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This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations:

Alison Stewart, Rachel Martin (2008-04-03). "'Round the Clock: Obama, Clinton Wiki-Warfare". Bryant Park Project, NPR.
Tom Foreman (2008-04-12). "Wikipedia Wars". This Week..., CNN.
John J. Miller (2008-04-21). "Liberal Web". National Review.
Kelly Heyboer (2008-05-28). "Hillary Clinton's Wikipedia watchdog". The Star-Ledger.
Paul Murnane (2008-05-28). "one of two pieces aired". WCBS Newsradio 880.
Brian Krebs (2008-08-29). "Wikipedia Edits Forecast Vice Presidential Picks". The Washington Post.
Noam Cohen (2008-11-05). "Wikipedia Enters the Fray". The New York Times.
Brian Heater (2008-11-06). "Obama Gets a Landslide of Wikipedia Edits". PC Magazine.
Noam Cohen (2008-11-09). "Updating a Reference Site on the Fly". The New York Times.
(none) (August 17, 2009). "The 50 most-viewed Wikipedia articles in 2009 and 2008". The Daily Telegraph.

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Archives

November 2003 – August 2006
September 2006 – November 2007
December 2007 – mid February 2008
mid February 2008 – end February 2008
Early March 2008 – mid March 2008
mid March 2008 – end March 2008
April 2008 – mid May 2008
mid May 2008 – end May 2008
early June 2008 – mid June 2008
mid June 2008 – mid July 2008
mid July 2008 – mid August 2008
mid August 2008 – mid September 2008
mid September 2008 – end September 2008
end September 2008 – early November 2008
early November 2008 – end December 2008
January 2009 – July 2010
July 2010 – end May 2013

Too many categories

McCain is in too many categories. We should start by removing him from non-US awards categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:53, 12 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Is this your own idiosyncratic view of the category system, or is there some WP-wide purge of non-essential categories going on? If the latter, please point to the consensus discussion behind it. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:01, 13 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Marital infidelity mention with regards to his public image is unreliably sourced

In the second line of the "Cultural and political image", it mentions John McCain's "marital infidelity" as part of "this image" as in his public image. This is sourced to a Blogspot blog, which I'm sure we all agree is an unreliable source as per WP:RS. Thus, the source should be changed or the sourced phrase removed. 211.31.192.182 (talk) 09:02, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You are right – I lost track of this on my watchlist when it came in. I have removed it. McCain's infidelities during his first marriage and the effect it had on his family are already mentioned in the "Commanding officer, liaison to Senate, and second marriage" section, but for whatever reason, those actions have not become a significant part of his image as a politician. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:22, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Arizona GOP censures McCain for 'liberal' record

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/arizona-gop-censures-mccain-liberal-record

Is the action of the state party bigwigs notable enough to mention? Hcobb (talk) 02:10, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for bringing this up, I hadn't seen it. I think the censure probably tells us more about the state party than it does about McCain, but it does illustrate that his 2009–10 swing is over and that, unless he does a repeat, he might be in trouble in 2016 should he decide to run again. So I've added it to this article and to the Senate career subarticle. When the 2013 ratings from the ACU and ADA come out, I'll update the chart that's here, which gives the most objective measure of changes in McCain's ideological state. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:32, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Silver Star

The Silver Star is a serious medal, "awarded for gallantry in action against an enemy of the United States." what did he get it for?