Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 1

This is an attempt to write an article on this candidate, Barack Obama. It attempts to be a biography, not a day to day account of his campaign, nor a campaign advertisement. Disclosure: I am a US citizen. I am not registered to either party as a voter. Larry Yount 21:58, 26 July 2007 (CDT)

Steve has complained (privately) that Richard reverted his edits without explanation. I agree that that is simply unacceptable, particularly in light of recent discussions. Well, as a very imperfect stopgap measure, here's what I've decided: Steve, feel free to redo your edits, if you want. Then, Richard may not touch them; others will have to do so, if they are flawed. If he does edit them, then tell me, and I will ban him from working on this article. --Larry Sanger 21:34, 10 January 2008 (CST)

Steve was the one who changed my edits. with, as you can see, no explanation on the talk page.Richard Jensen 21:48, 10 January 2008 (CST)

The facts are here:

1. http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Barack_Obama&diff=100246909&oldid=100246908
2. http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Barack_Obama&diff=100246910&oldid=100246909
3. http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Barack_Obama&diff=100248705&oldid=100246914

On what Larry stated I could do, what I'm choosing is, "sometimes the polite way is to let the other person undo his or her own work, once a mistake is pointed out."

Stephen Ewen 22:22, 10 January 2008 (CST)

How about:

Obama, a charismatic speaker,[1] repeatedly criticized Clinton for her 2002 vote supporting war against Iraq, and for her alleged ties to lobbies and old-fashioned politics.

Warren Schudy 23:47, 10 January 2008 (CST)

I don't have any problem with the new text of Richard, as it seems clear that Clinton is part of the old way of doing politics in the USA. What I do have a problem with, is that Richard removed the improvements made to other parts of the text by Stephen. Please reinsert them, Richard, because they are needed. Martin Baldwin-Edwards 23:56, 10 January 2008 (CST)

I'm happy to restore Steve's innocuous changes. But let's get the rhetoric clear: elections are fought like wars and politicians attack each other, soi attack" is the correct term. see [1] Obama did not use words like "alleged" and to insert them in a paraphrase distorts his position. The theme of "change" versus "old politics" is basic to Obama's "Many Iowa voters have responded to Obama's message that he is a fresh face who can unite a polarized electorate and move the country away from what he calls the "same old" politics. at [2] CZ is not endorsing Obama's attacks, it is explaining them. Richard Jensen 00:12, 11 January 2008 (CST)

At least to my ear, "X attacked Y for Z" says not only that X said Y does Z, but also that Z is true. I suggested inserting "alleged" to remove the implication. Another way to fix it would be to use "X accused Y of Z" or something like that instead. Warren Schudy 00:30, 11 January 2008 (CST)

No, I don'e agree with either proposition, Warren. First, a political attack is a political attack -- regardless of its veracity. Secondly, this usage of the word "alleged" is a piece of legalistic nonsense, designed to allow people to report allegations of a criminal nature without being sued for it. If the allegations under consideration here were of that sort, I could agree, but they are not. We could end up with nonsenses like: "Clinton allegedly attacked Obama for allegedly being too clever..." There is no need for this legalese outside of allegations of a criminal or other serious nature. Martin Baldwin-Edwards 03:04, 11 January 2008 (CST)

It seems Richard reverted all of the edits (a bunch of Stephen's edits) between one of his edits and his next edit. Perhaps Richard is working on it in an external text editor and forgot to download Stephen's changes before making his own? Warren Schudy 00:18, 11 January 2008 (CST)

Not that anyone has asked me, but my opinion is that we should not be quoting anyone's rhetoric about anyone else during this campaign. I'll admit I'm a Hillary supporter, but I'm not going around trying to attack Obama. If we go down that route, it would be madness. Please, just stick to reporting the guy's background, and let the public press quote the rhetoric. Quoting rhetoric from years ago seems more justified, but anything that was spoken since the current presidential campaign began does not, in my opinion, belong in here. It would literally never, ever end.Pat Palmer 13:41, 16 January 2008 (CST)

law practice

I emailed the firm Miner, Barhill and Galland to ask them to verify our statement about his law work. Richard Jensen 00:32, 11 January 2008 (CST)

OK. I took it from Obama's online CV.I cannot imagine he would take any risks with an internet source for which he is responsible:-) Martin Baldwin-Edwards 02:58, 11 January 2008 (CST)

well there is an ambiguity. The firm does not list him on its webpage, which seems odd. Is he on the firm's payroll? I assume not, that his status is on hold.Richard Jensen 03:34, 11 January 2008 (CST)

I imagine so, too. Martin Baldwin-Edwards 04:10, 11 January 2008 (CST)

If there is any heat here, to my mind it is more personalized than content-driven (although there are content issues involved). I am trying to mediate these in an informal way. Martin Baldwin-Edwards 10:59, 11 January 2008 (CST)

I don't intend to get involved unless there's a fundamental sticking pointGareth Leng 11:41, 11 January 2008 (CST)

It seems to me there's a slight pro-Obama bias in Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Note that Obama is my favorite front-runner. For example, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton discuss how Obama criticizes Clinton, but not the other way around. Warren Schudy 11:34, 11 January 2008 (CST)

Clearly, that should be remedied. I haven't looked at the Clinton article since she and hubby started attacking Obama :-)Martin Baldwin-Edwards 12:00, 11 January 2008 (CST)

very good point and I will fix it. Richard Jensen 14:46, 11 January 2008 (CST)

Reiterating my statement in a different section above, I think we should be careful to avoid trying to report on the ongoing campaign while it is occurring. Someone will always be offended. In my opinion, these articles should be restricted to a rather dry reporting of background facts for the time being, and they should be as neutral as the clear blue sky.Pat Palmer 13:44, 16 January 2008 (CST)

See my comment on the Forum thread, which basically supports this idea. My concern is not so much about offending people with facts, but about how ephemeral these facts really are. The day-to-day reporting of the Presidential Campaign should be on the article of that name, and not here. Martin Baldwin-Edwards 06:45, 17 January 2008 (CST)

I think we can purge the ephemeral stuff after the election is over (by which time we will have a better idea of what is epheemeral and what is of permanent importance. See the flare-up over race last week: permanent or transitory? I think it's too early tro say.). Meanwhile people interested in Obama will expect his relationship with Clinton to be treated here. (and vice versa, for people interested in Clinton going to her article.) yes there will be duplication, but a few hundred words of duplication is harmless, compared to the risk of going to the Obama article and not finding the info you weant on his relation with Clinton. Richard Jensen 06:56, 17 January 2008 (CST)

law firm will respond to CZ

10:23 PM 1/14/2008, Dear Dr. Jensen:

Thank you for contacting us. There are some inaccuracies in the proposed Obama entry listed below. We would like to get back to you in the next few days with corrections.

Jeff Cummings

Jeffrey I. Cummings Miner Barnhill & Galland

Richard Jensen 23:50, 14 January 2008 (CST)

Interesting.--Martin Baldwin-Edwards 01:27, 15 January 2008 (CST)

yeah, it was posted at 10:23 pm....they work their associates till midnight. Richard Jensen 01:42, 15 January 2008 (CST)

campaign reporting

I have consolidated the analysis of the presidential campaign tactics used so far in the section called "presidential campaign". I have also replaced what I considered to be "spin" words (i.e., implying either positive or negative traits) with less hot button words.Pat Palmer 19:58, 16 January 2008 (CST)

I notice that the "presidential campaign" section is almost an exact duplicate of the section by the same name on the Hillary Clinton article. Therefore, it makes sense, if this analysis must be in Citizendium at all, to move it all out to a separate article called something like "presidential primary (2008)". anybody want to tackle that?Pat Palmer 20:19, 16 January 2008 (CST)

Referee statement

The Citizendium Executive is discussing proposals for a Dispute Resolution process. These are not yet finalised but will involve a system of “referees” for disputes.

A referee will be an uninvolved member of the project who will play no significant active part in a disputed article, but will be empowered to make certain types of decisions about a disputed article that will be provisionally binding on contributors to that article. The purpose of such decisions will be to call a halt to disputes with a decision that enables article development to continue. The decisions will be on the basis, where appropriate, of Citizendium policy, and there will be an appeal mechanism if decisions are thought to be in breach of this. The referee will not make judgments on matters of expert knowledge that lie outside their expertise, but may make judgments on style, tone, balance, neutrality etc. The referee will attempt to make a swift decision that is fair and reasonable and in the best interests of the Citizendium project; swiftness means that decisions will be imperfect, but authors will be expected to abide by them rather than extend a dispute. The referee has no disciplinary powers, a flagrant breach of his or her guidance will be a matter for the Constabulary.

As this article is the subject of apparently heated dispute, Larry as Editor-in-Chief has asked me to act as referee here as part of a trial of the process.

At present I intend to stand well back here. If there is any specific issue that needs my attention, please state it in a message on my Talk page.Gareth Leng 08:31, 11 January 2008 (CST)

Referee intervention

I have been asked to help resolve the issue of whether "ephemeral stuff" should be kept off the candidates' webpages. I've read the thread in the forums, and on this and other Talk pages, and thank all contributors for stating their views clearly. There has been a related discussion also in the executive committee. There are good reasons for keeping articles hot and topical as they attract interest to Citizendium and lively interest amongst Citizendium participants. However there are also problems: 1) the imperative to keep all biographical articles of living people scrupulously fair while 2) balancing the overall coverage and 3) frequently updating

This poses a need for Citizendium editors to be continually alert both to the individual articles and also to the overall coverage, and that is a challenge. So let me propose now the following:

1)This article (and the other individual candidate articles) should each contain a section (as they do) on the Presidential Campaign, and all "ephemera" should be strictly confined to that section.

2)That section should be the identical copy of a section within a new article on "Candidates for the 2008 Presidential election" and all editing of that section should be confined there. This will confine discussion of balance etc. to a single article, and allow editors and authors to reflect directly on the comparative way in which other candidates are handled.

3) On this article, the relevant section should open with a statement expressing its ephemeral nature, referring the reader to the "Candidates for the 2008 Presidential election." article.

4) Anything that appears in the ephemeral section should not in itself be a reason to alter anything else in this article, precisely because it is ephemeral.

This is not something that I'm willing to impose without any discussion. I don't want prolonged or detailed discussion on this, just an indication of whether this seems reasonable and workable, bearing in mind that we must resolve this issue swiftly to allow work to proceed happily and efficiently.Gareth Leng 11:20, 17 January 2008 (CST)

Good idea. I suggest since we already have an overview article on the 2008 election therefore we don't need a separate one on "Candidates for the 2008 Presidential election." Richard Jensen 16:21, 17 January 2008 (CST)

My proposal (on the forums) suggests separate articles for the Democratic and Republican primaries (which I haven't actually started yet, pending some sort of decision). That avoids having a behemoth article for all 20 candidates (ok, we're down to 10ish now) --ZachPruckowski 16:47, 17 January 2008 (CST)

Bear in mind that if you want to ensure that the text of discussions is exactly the same in both cases, you can use templates to do that. It's not hard. For example, you could create Template:Barack Obama 2008 primary campaign (or whatever) and then include the template on the two different pages. --Larry Sanger 13:03, 18 January 2008 (CST)

template = useful idea. How does one create it? It is a new article titled Template:Barack Obama 2008 primary campaign and located somewhere?? Richard Jensen 13:06, 18 January 2008 (CST)

Yes. One could do it that way. Our you could write it as a sub-page of the primary's page ( 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary/ephemera or something) and then transclude it into each article (the code would be {{:2008 Democratic Presidential Primary/ephemera}} ). That would give us one section to edit which would then mirror itself in all the candidate articles. I would, however, suggest a better name than "ephemera". --ZachPruckowski 14:33, 18 January 2008 (CST)

The normal terminology would be "news update" or something. I started using the word "ephemeral" for purposes of argumentation, and it seemed to catch on! :-) Martin Baldwin-Edwards 15:17, 18 January 2008 (CST)