Talk:Al Gore/Archive 8

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Edit suggestion on popular/electoral votes

A minor fix: Gore is actually the fourth candidate (after Andrew Jackson, Samuel Tilden, and Grover Cleveland) to win the popular vote and lose the electoral vote, not the third. The source cited in the article does detail this, but is not a model of clarity. Thanks. Malawi craig 00:25, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Army active duty time discrepancy

Is the following a typo, misinformation or my own ignorance?

As a US Army Vet drafted and serving from Aug '72 to Aug '74, there seems to be a discrepancy in the time served by Al Gore as a volunteer. I say this because I am positive that US Army volunteers served for 3 years and 2 in '72. Only draftes served for two years! Officers served for 4 years, I think. I suppose there might have been a change in policy for a volunteer's term of enlistment between Aug '69 and Aug '72. I however doubt this.

Can any Vets enlisting in the Aug '69 time frame verify this? Could Al have gotten an Honorable discharge a year sooner than he was supossed too for one reason or another?

Radar —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.71.243.82 (talk) 19:00, 5 May 2007 (UTC).

Futurama

Al Gore has been in not just one but two episodes of Futurama, the first time being on May 21, 2000. Gore was in the third act of the first "Anthology of Interest", where he leads his team of "Vice Presidential Action Rangers". The article might want to reflect this, since it only lists his second appearance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthology_of_Interest_I#Act_3

Chewbacca1010 23:56, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, someone needs to get right on that. Rstandefer 14:16, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

False information at Note 46?

This is what the sentence reads currently: A poll of Democratic Iowa voters in light of the 2008 Iowa Caucus put Gore at 7%.[46]

I followed the citation, and I don't see this seven percent anywhere. Am I just blind? Polls showed him much higher than that, plus this is quite old information as politics go. For one thing, Iowa's former governor Vilsack was still running. That certainly skewed the polls.

Can someone please verify this information, update it, or remove it? Thanks.

67.183.158.238 05:42, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Controversy Regarding Inconvenient Truth

I object to the article's labelling of this as a controversial film. Doing so acts to further propagate the misbelief that global warming is not real, not man-made, and not threatening. Furthermore, the citation provided is not only from an obscure source, but also bases its claim to controversy on the resistance by a conservative think tank to Gore's proposal for cutting emissions based on economic reasons (which are invalid anyway because the economic cost will only increases as we postpone dealing with this problem). The fact is global warming is incontrovertible these days; you can cite the UN IPCC report (http://www.ipcc.ch/) as the shared viewpoint of the world's scientists, who are the only people qualified to say whether global warming is a controversy anyway. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kmchale (talk • contribs).

Post Vice-presidency

I changed the section heading "Elder Statesman" to "Post Vice-Presidency". I think that calling someone a "Statesman" is slightly POV, and that's best avoided where possible. — PyTom 16:53, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

That's fine with me. The phrase stuck out in my mind as well. Organ123 17:06, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Seems like a good change. 205.155.72.125 03:06, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Recent news concerning Al Gore

This evening Al Gore appeared on the Comedy Central network television show "The Daily Report with Jon Stewart" introducing a new book he has written. During his interview he addressed several current events, from areas such as environmental interests and recent political events and motivations. I believe that this new active work should be in some way addressed, at least documented, in this article. Incidentally, Mr. Stewart followed the interview with a short monologue concerning a possible Al Gore bid to a future U.S. Presidency campaign.Taperunner 08:16, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

The book is already in the article - don't know what else you';re referring to that is not in there. Tvoz |talk 08:24, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Popular culture

I don't believe this section should be in the article as it invites pov and silly content. The family guy stuff is just silly. The futurama stuff is mentioned in more detail earlier in the article. Why does this need to be here? Anyone want to comment on the matter? Turtlescrubber 21:46, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I think it makes sense to cut it. I suppose it's amusing information to know about, but the article is very long and I don't think this information is really necessary for someone who was a vice president. He's probably had many, many pop culture appearances, but it's not particularly notable given his background. Maybe a sentence or two in another section stating that he has had many pop culture appearances would suffice for those who think some mention should be made in the article. Organ123 15:13, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Headers

This is a long article with a lot of subs. We should really think about removing headers which contain nothing but seealso links. This would make the TOC a lot more useful. Chris Cunningham 19:57, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

problems editing

Hello. I'd like to edit the main page to include some more of the controversial information from reliable new sources to help make this a good wiki article but I couldn't annonymously so I've created an account. Only problem is I cannot access the editing function of tha main page still. Can someone please tell me why? Also is anyone here thinking that it's a good idea to try to remove the blatent bias in much of this article? Thank you. --Jim732 20:15, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Most likely the article is protected not only against editing by anonymous users but also against NEW users. I don't know how long you must be registered before being able to edit. - Dan D. Ric 20:29, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it is a four day waiting period. Maybe five. Turtlescrubber 14:37, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok thank you. Also, what is the reason any negative information about this person has been kept off this article? Is it because he is a living person? Jim732 14:41, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, there is a controversy page. What type of negative information were you thinking of? Turtlescrubber 14:53, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Why is controversial information not summarized on this page? Is it a function of the protection of a living person policy? Or are there simply to large a number of supporters? --Jim732 16:21, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

It depends on what you have in mind to say on the page. The page does mention that there is controversial information about Gore, and it describes the "invented the internet" controversy and the controversial 2000 election situation. If it's more character-based stuff, like "Gore has been called a 'liar' and a 'loser' by X, Y, and Z," then the living person policy starts to kick in. Personal criticisms need to be very carefully inserted, from what I make of the BLP policy. However, if there is a notable controversy surrounding Gore that you think is missing, I suggest you state specifically what it is on the talk page and see how other editors react to it. Likewise, if you think that specific information unfairly presents Gore in an unreasonably positive light, I would suggest stating that specifically here as well. Or you can carefully edit it and see if editors revert your edit, at which point bring it to the discussion page. Organ123 18:33, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Main photo circa 1823

What is the reason why this article uses a photo from 1994 as the main photo? Gore doesn't really look much like that photo anymore. Is there some reason why we shouldn't update it? Thanks. Organ123 18:24, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

It's just a fair use/copyright issue - the photo currently in use is in the public domain. A more recent photo which complies with Wikipedia:Image use policy is a good idea if it can be found. -Classicfilms 00:26, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Religion?

On tonight's (06/04/07) episode of The Colbert Report, Al Gore spoke of "God" in a particularly secular fashion, referring to "the capacity of humans" as a god-like entity, and he outright smashed the bible and Yaweh. I'm wondering if Baptist is a proper labling of him. He seemed atheistic. --NLUT

That would be original research. And who are you to tell someone what their religion is? Turtlescrubber 12:41, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Error in ARTICLE

It says undeer political career 1988 presidential run, when it should be 1998 presedential run. Please let me know if this has been updated. Jeremy.leventhal@medsphere.com.

Thank you, -Jeremy

It is not an error. He ran in 1988. There was no presidential election in 1998. Organ123 18:49, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

There is an error though: The headline is correct, but the first sentence under it claims he ran for office in 1998.General Lethal 19:52, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Futurama section

Well I have nothing against a futurama mention in the article but it was growing larger than sections that are way more important. I see no reason why a picture Gore on futurama is necessary in a bio article. We need some limits on this section if we want to keep it stable in the article. Turtlescrubber 23:35, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Seriously, you don't think this section is being given undue weight. You are to the point where you can have your own article on this. Is this really that important in the big picture of Al Gore's life and history. Why do we need a picture of Al Gore as a disembodied head in a jar. This is supposed to be a proper encyclopedia. Turtlescrubber 12:41, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Many proper encyclopedias include caricatures and political cartoons of famous figures in their articles on those figures, and this is certainly no less encyclopedic than that. If anything, it's more appropriate than those, since it's unusual for the public figure to participate in lampooning himself. As for the length of the section, I don't feel that one paragraph is excessive, given Gore's connections with the show and the "Checkers speech" quality of its role in rebooting his public image. You asked for citations in the comment of the edit when you removed the section, I provided citations of all but one sentence (which I'm still working to verify), and I think it's kind of dirty pool for you to say now that your objection was just a pretext. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 13:13, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

As for issues of expansion and weight, I don't think the size is inappropriate. Gore repeatedly cited the show as his favorite during the 2000 campaign, his daughter worked for it as a writer, and he used it as a central part of his public relations campaign on issues of global warming. It's a big part of his life. I do think that it shouldn't expand much beyond its current size, barring further developments, and I moved the section down below the one for "An Inconvenient Truth", which is probably more important within the overall context of the article. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 13:48, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I realize that I was being a bit of a dick and I apologize (I am wondering if I have the temperament to edit here at all). As I said before I do agree that this deserves some space in the article. I do worry about people trying to add on family guy and south park stuff, but now that you have cited it (and Al Gore was directly involved) I don't think it will be much of a problem. The only thing I have an issue with is the picture but as I have badgered you already and you have done quite a bit of work I will just kind of back off and see if anyone else has an opinion. Btw, he is also going to be appearing in the next futurama dvd movie. FYI. Turtlescrubber 14:02, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Undue Weight for Internet and technology section

As I calculate it, more than a quarter of the main text of this page is devoted to the "Internet and technology" section. Given what Al Gore is mainly notable for, I think this is a violation of WP:UNDUE and that the section should be trimmed accordingly. As I see it, it's not as though the other sections aren't fleshed out enough; it's just that this section is too long. I propose shrinking it. Organ123 02:44, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Good point about the length - however, as there are a number of related articles to this page which are lengthy topics, it seems a better choice to create a new article called something like "Al Gore: Internet and technology" (open to suggestions) rather than delete existing information. I would be willing to start the article and write the short introduction on this page if there is consensus. -Classicfilms 04:52, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it sounds like a good idea. Go for it. Turtlescrubber 05:01, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Though I'd like to wait and hear from a few more people first. I'd also like feedback on the title of the article - any thoughts on it? -Classicfilms 05:54, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Contributions to technology by Al Gore? It doesn't really matter that much what sub-articles are called. But yeah, that's the key reason for the apparent skew in the article; everything else is shunted off to sub-pages. Chris Cunningham 11:03, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, the one subpage has a major skewing effect. Good call there. Turtlescrubber 11:37, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Classicfilms, I think that a new page is a good idea as well, and I agree with Chris that the siphoning off of other sections is a factor in making the technology section so relatively long. As for the article title, I'll go with Classicfilm's idea since it starts with "Al Gore", but Chris's idea seems fine to me too. Thanks in advance to classicfilms if he/she makes the new page. Organ123 13:40, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Sure, I'm happy to. I'll take care of it sometime today. And thanks for all of the feedback. -Classicfilms 13:55, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Neutral Point of View on Electoral history

Perhaps this has been a past edit war, but it seems biased to only present popular vote data for the 2000 Presidential election. Yes, of course include information on the popular vote, the Florida recount, and the Supreme Court ruling, etc. but the article is confusing biased in its current form. Are the results for the other elections popular vote? What were the results from the electoral vote? The section also includes the standalone line "After the Supreme Court ruling against a Florida recount, Gore would lose the electoral vote." The location and lack of further information obviously presents the fact with a slant to it. The line should be deleted since this information is already including in the article under National Campaigns - 2000 Presidential election.

Feruser 13:57, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Prince of Asturias Award

He was awarded the 2007 Prince of Asturias Award in International Cooperation