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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Barack Obama article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

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This article has been nominated to be checked for its neutrality.

Please stay calm and civil while commenting or presenting evidence, and do not make personal attacks. Be patient when approaching solutions to any issues. If consensus is not reached, other solutions exist to draw attention and ensure that more editors mediate or comment on the dispute.

	Barack Obama is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Misplaced Pages community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
	This article appeared on Misplaced Pages's Main Page as Today's featured article on August 18, 2004.
Article milestones Date Process Result August 5, 2004 Featured article candidate Promoted January 23, 2007 Featured article review Kept July 26, 2007 Featured article review Kept April 15, 2008 Featured article review Kept Current status: Featured article

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view · edit Frequently asked questions To view the response to a question, click the link to the right of the question. 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 , , 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 Misplaced Pages 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: Misplaced Pages's Biography of living persons policy says that "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 Misplaced Pages'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: Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages, 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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. Disruption 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 Misplaced Pages'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. Misplaced Pages'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. Misplaced Pages 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: Efforts by established single-purpose accounts to introduce such poorly-sourced content will be summarily deleted. On the second such attempt, the source in question will be immediately reported to the reliable sources noticeboard for administrative assistance. New editors who wish to engage in discussions on previously rejected content are encouraged to ensure that their sources do not violate any of Misplaced Pages's policies and sourcing guidelines. 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.

Administrators have identified this article as being problematic with regard to our biographies of living persons policy. In order to avoid placing special enforcement sanctions, which may include blocks, deletions, page protections, topic/article bans, and "any and all means at their disposal to ensure that every Misplaced Pages article is in full compliance with the letter and spirit of the biographies of living persons policy.", users are asked to take special care in editing this article to ensure it stays within compliance with policy. If you violate our biographies of living persons policy you may receive a warning and explanation on your talk page. If you again violate our biographies of living persons policy, you may be blocked, banned or otherwise sanctioned with limited rights of appeal. Misplaced Pages articles can affect real people's lives. This gives us an ethical and legal responsibility. Biographical material must be written with the greatest care and attention to verifiability, neutrality and avoiding original research, particularly if it is contentious. Editors must take particular care adding biographical material about a living person to any Misplaced Pages page. Such material requires a high degree of sensitivity, and must adhere strictly to all applicable laws in the United States and to all of our content policies.

This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations: Jose Antonio Vargas (2007-09-17). "On Misplaced Pages, Debating 2008 Hopefuls' Every Facet". The Washington Post. Alison Stewart, Rachel Martin (2008-04-03). "'Round the Clock: Obama, Clinton Wiki-Warfare". The Bryant Park Project, NPR. Brooke Gladstone, Bob Garfield (2008-04-04). "Editors in Chief". On The Media, NPR. Eve Fairbanks (2008-04-09). "Wiki Woman". The New Republic. Jesse Brown (2008-04-10). "Hillary's Wiki Defender". Search Engine, CBC Radio One. Tom Foreman (2008-04-12). "Misplaced Pages Wars". This Week..., CNN. John J. Miller (2008-04-21). "Liberal Web". National Review. Kelly Heyboer (2008-05-28). "Clinton's entry in Misplaced Pages has a watchdog". The Star-Ledger. Paul Murnane (2008-05-28). "one of two pieces aired". WCBS Newsradio 880.

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Barack Obama article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

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First African-American

We claim Obama is the first African-American major party presidential candidate, yet Joel Augustus Rogers asserted there had been Five Negro Presidents (in the book of that name). Perhaps we shouldn't jump the gun with such a racialised suggestion even if the MSN does, and at least not front with it in the introduction. Terjen (talk) 07:18, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Those are fringe theories and have no place in the Obama article. Even if one or all of those presidents had some black in their ancestry, it doesn't automatically make them black just because there used to be a one-drop rule. They didn't identify as black, and no one else saw them as such. Kman543210 (talk) 11:08, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

For the sake of accuracy, shouldn't Senator Obama be described as the first "bi-racial" candidate? To say he is African-American, negates half of his lineage. (Only half of his ancestry is from the Kenyan side.) Bi-racial is how Halle Berry refers to herself. Some others in that category are Alicia Keys, Bob Marley, Derek Jeter, Lenny Kravitz, and Tina Turner. Tiger Woods, who is multi-racial, makes a point not to ignore any of his lineage when he refers to himself as "Cablinasian". If we describe people with inaccurate descriptions based simply on appearance, like the Black website that refers to Eartha Kitt as an "American Negro" (even though her father was white and mother was Cherokee), it sends a message to people from diverse backgrounds that part of their family tree should be ignored, hidden, or minimized to gain acceptance from society. Yet isn't it the pioneers who proclaim their diversity even in the face of discrimination who have made it easier for future generations who follow? Here is a perfect candidate to help a large segment of multi-cultural Americans to gain acceptance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JustCurious (talk • contribs) 20:44, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

• For your answer please click on at the Frequently Asked Questions (short FAQ) box above. Thanks --Floridianed (talk) 21:00, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Please see question 2 in the FAQ at the top of this page, as well as the extensive talk page archives on this issue. Thanks, --Clubjuggle /C 21:02, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Criticism sections are against WP policy, no?

• so perhaps it follows we should avoid superfluous use of the word when possible. I refuse to read the heaping dark mass of the previous discussions on this matter because I can basically imagine it by looking at the sig lines.

scrutiny might be fine, like as in "media scrutiny." prolly the most accurate, though I think "media attention" might be even more neutral.

Some editors need to remember approx. 90% of the cites for not only this page but all the Obama subpages, are media cites. The media, generally, reports but does not criticize. And when they do criticize, they identify it as such, ie editorial. Many of those even are tv media cites, which is the least likely format to editorialize, with notable exceptions. But more to the point we have been minimizing the use of editorial cites. I don't know how many this page has, but the number could well be zero. The campaign page has a massive number of cites, and I'm sure a couple are editorial in nature, but again not a relatively high amount.

Simply put, not only is promotion of criticism/controversy sections frowned upon, but the cites we have do not come close to supporting such a statement, which I think is the more serious problem here. You need RS sources which actually criticize and not simply report criticism, and you need a bunch of them, to make such an argument. 72.0.180.2 (talk) 21:28, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Criticism sections are not prohibited by Misplaced Pages policy, they are just discouraged. The closest policy gets to banning the sections is Misplaced Pages:NPOV#Article structure, but that's still not banning them. Mostly it's just a general agreement among many editors on Misplaced Pages that the sections are a bad thing and a sign of poor editing and whenever possible, they should be avoided. --Bobblehead 21:47, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

• From http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Criticism_and_praise:

"Criticism 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."

Given how there has been much criticism of Obama reported in the media, I find amazing that it is not represented here. I tried adding it twice, both times well-cited, from mainstream news publications and simply NPOV reporting what they say, and both times they got reverted.

I've better things to do than engage in edit wars but maybe other people would like to crusade for Truth. I just hope people continue to view Misplaced Pages as complementary to and not substitutes for other information sources.

gssq (talk) 12:58, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

• Simply put, Misplaced Pages is not a place to "crusade for Truth." It reall is as simple as that. S. Dean Jameson 13:07, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

The policy I've always read about was to come to a version of an article that everyone can agree upon, and even supporters of Obama can agree that he has been criticised on many points, which are curiously absent from the article. Given that the Misplaced Pages guidelines play with semantics and advise the use of the word 'critique' instead of 'criticism', it is puzzling why edits were reverted instead of the section just being retitled.gssq (talk) 06:25, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

And on one of the reverts, I was told that BLPs are not supposed to use the word 'criticism'. I looked in the BLP policy page but didn't see it. I looked harder and found it under the 'criticism' policy page. I've added that bit to the BLP page, but who knows - it might get reverted too (for some bizarre reason). All this given that I have seem 'criticism' sections in many other articles (albeit not as highly trafficked as this one). I'm going to try one last time, but I have no doubt that some other rule only dedicated Wikipedians know about will be thrown at me. Misplaced Pages - the 💕 that anyone can edit, if they can read through long lists of policies and throw them back at those who revert their edits. <<<gssq 06:46>>>

added your sig which you... forgot on that last edit. please remember to use your sig for each edit so that you don't get accused of deceptive practices. 72.0.180.2 (talk) 06:55, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. gssq (talk) 07:19, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

yes god forbid we should use rules or something... if you truly do not understand the difference between editorials and news reports, then probably WP guidelines are the least of your worries. seriously. 72.0.180.2 (talk) 06:40, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

• obviously sourced criticism is allowed, and is in fact present throughout the article. What should not be there, because the sources do not support it and because it is contrary to WP guidelines, is use of the word criticism. 72.0.180.2 (talk) 19:18, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

• Just several months back was the first time that I started to edit Misplaced Pages, and to be honest, I was surprised that any encyclopedia would have a section devoted to "criticism" on someone or something. If there are appropriate and sourced points to be made, I see no reason why they couldn't fit into any of the other categories and not all lumped into one section. I don't object to sourced and notable criticism, just to an entire section devoted to and called this. Kman543210 (talk) 06:37, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I get your point, but I'm sure you'd have noticed that many articles have 'criticism' sections. Furthermore, the policy section doesn't object to a 'critique' section. gssq (talk) 06:54, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

unless- the sources are contrary to use of the word critique as well! as you have been told before- the fact that your proposal is contrary to WP guidelines (criticism/critique/angels on pin heads/etc) is less important than the fact that your proposal is a brazen violation of original research RULES, considering the sources we have... 72.0.180.2 (talk) 07:01, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Did you read the sources I used? There were 5-6 and only 1 was an editorial. gssq (talk) 07:19, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

well then its doubtful they meet the definition of "criticism" as opposed to "reporting of criticism." Your best bet was probably to say you had more editorials that that, lol. 72.0.180.2 (talk) 07:50, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Please read the material in question before making inapplicable comments. gssq (talk) 17:35, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

To me, the main argument against separate sections that are exclusively criticisms or controversies is that they easily can become dumping grounds for any negative thing that is said about an individual, giving them more weight than is appropriate. Integrating them into the appropriate section of a biography is better writing and forces editors to decide how significant each incident or item is in the context of a whole life before just dumping it in. It is felt to be less biased because it doesn't emphasize negative material unduly and allows for balanced, in context, presentation. It is also sometimes explained by saying consider what your reaction would be to an article that had a section called "Praise" - it wouldn't fly. This no-criticism-section argument has been made on biographies of people across political and other lines. But as Bobblehead said, it's a matter of general agreement among many editors, not an official policy. Tvoz/talk 07:55, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

To expand upon this, late last year there was a concerted effort on the part of the editors involved with all the 2008 presidential candidates' articles (and there were a lot of candidates back then!) to rid them of separate "controversies" or "criticism" sections or subarticles, and to integrate that material (when it was legitimate) into the mainline of the article or articles about each candidate. You can see the discussions, and links to the separate Talk page discussions at the time, at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject United States presidential elections#Status of "controversies" pages. As you can see, we successfully dismantled and disbursed all such sections and subarticles; some of the really big or prominent ones were those for Hillary, McCain, and Giuliani. Misplaced Pages has been a lot better for this action ever since, and now is not to time to backslide! Wasted Time R (talk) 11:05, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

This is all well and good, but for those not familiar with all this history, it is perplexing when edits get reverted when official policy doesn't say anything about it. gssq (talk) 17:35, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

And while dismantling and disbursing is a good thing, reverting wholesale when there's material of worth isn't. gssq (talk) 17:38, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

There also is something in the FAQ for this article above - the revert probably should have pointed you to that in edit summary, but things sometimes move too quickly here for editors to notice that a new editor made an edit and may not know the background. The thing to do is to raise the issues you wanted added on Talk, and you'll find out quickly enough if it's something that has already been covered, or is in a sub article, or what. Tvoz/talk 18:15, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Mention of ACORN

A mention of ACORN was inserted, sourced only to a WSJ opinion piece. I've reverted it, and I'm opening a discussion related to the necessity of the mention. To me, it has a bit of a "guilt-by-association" feel to it. I'm open to other views, though, which is why I wanted to discuss it here. S. Dean Jameson 16:07, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

The WSJ reference is which includes:

In 1992, Acorn hired Mr. Obama to run a voter registration effort. He later became a trainer for the group, as well as its lawyer in election law cases.

Obama's connection with ACORN is a story rumbling around in conservative leaning sources, see for example this opinion piece from the National Review or this from Michelle Malkin. This article from the LA Times has an entirely different slant. It would appear Project Vote coordinated with ACORN, the ACORN folks were impressed with Obama, and ACORN then had him train some of their own folks (this is from the LA Times article). Although the WSJ claim that Acorn hired Obama to run a voter registration effort appears to be factually false (he worked for Project Vote , not ACORN), he did represent ACORN in at least one legal action . All in all, it looks to me like this is an attempt to overstate Obama's relationship with ACORN. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:40, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

This is my view as well. There seems to be a clear agenda in the sources that try to imply that Obama worked directly for ACORN, and didn't simply advise/train a few of their workers. S. Dean Jameson 17:51, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

You haven't shown that "In 1992, Acorn hired Mr. Obama to run a voter registration effort..." is "factually false". The ChicagoMag article you cite as saying that Obama did not work for ACORN is introduced as a chronicle of "a new political star" and is arguably as much "an opinion piece" that advances Obama's political ambitions as the WSJ cite retards them. If that article said Obama did not work for ACORN, you'd thereby have a conflict, not a refutation, but the article you cite makes no mention of ACORN, which proves nothing. For a conflict, you have to make the additional assumptions that the only voter registration effort Obama worked on in 1992 was the Project Vote! effort and, even if there was just the one, that Project Vote! and ACORN are not allied such that working for the former effectively means working for the latter. In any case, lawyers are "hired" by clients, and ACORN was an Obama client. If the WSJ should not be cited here, that's fine, but I disagree that a single brief mention of ACORN somewhere would "overstate" the relationship. I suggest that no mention of it at all is, in fact, an understatement.Bdell555 (talk) 18:45, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

PS This article makes it clear that Project Vote! was undertaken in direct partnership with ACORN.Bdell555 (talk) 21:46, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Those arguing that he did not work for ACORN do not bear the onus of proof here, Bdell. It's upon those who wish to include the material to reliably source it before inclusion. You have failed to do so. S. Dean Jameson 18:49, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Your claim that he did not work for ACORN is refuted by the Chicago Sun Times (amongst other sources) which indicate that Obama was a lawyer for ACORN. That means he worked for them. In any case, that's not the issue here. The issue is whether there should be any mention of a relationship or not. The criteria of WP:NOTABLE are satisfied here.Bdell555 (talk) 18:53, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

You have to show -- through reliable sources -- that he worked for ACORN, and not with ACORN, which is an important distinction. Thus far, you have simply sourced it to John Fund's WSJ opinion piece, which fails the reliability test. S. Dean Jameson 18:59, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I do, do I? Says who, besides you? But we can have it your way, and just have something brief in the article to the effect that Obama worked "with" ACORN, and it could be sourced to the Chicago Reader article I mention below. How's that for a compromise?Bdell555 (talk) 19:06, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

(undent)There's no need for anger. This would seem to demand a higher standard of inclusion. And no, I don't feel that the fact he once worked alongsid ACORN on a campaign is notable enough to require it be mentioned in the article. S. Dean Jameson 19:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not angry. I'm just asking you to quote specific words from WP:RS (and WP:NOTABLE) instead of just stating what you believe the rules are concerning reliable sources (and notability). I've already indicated that, in the interests of moving this towards a resolution, I'd substitute another source if you've got issues with reliability here. Whatever the rules are here, they ought to be applied uniformly. That means that if there should be no mention of ACORN on the grounds that it is unfavourable to Obama (which is the reason you gave initially), then all the "favourable" material in the article of comparable notability should also be removed in order to preserve WP:NPOV. WP:BLP does not override WP:RS, WP:NOTABLE and WP:NPOV.Bdell555 (talk) 19:32, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

These aren't the scales of justice. There's no quota of X number of positive mentions requires Y number of negative mentions. And just so you know our policy on biographies of living persons does take precedence over other policies. S. Dean Jameson 19:34, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

BLP does NOT "take precedence". The policy says "biographical material about a living person ... must adhere strictly to ... all of our content policies, especially: Neutral Point of View...". WP:BLP also states, not once but twice, that "When in doubt, biographies should be pared back to a version that is completely sourced, neutral, and on-topic" and does NOT indicate this paring back should discriminate in favour of what's favourable over what's unfavourable. Finally, the policy states that "Misplaced Pages's standing and neutrality must not be compromised by allowing the editing of articles to show an excessive bias in their subject's favor". The WP:NPOV policy is described as "a fundamental Wikimedia principle and a cornerstone of Misplaced Pages." That language does not appear in WP:BLP. It's not clear that an association with ACORN is necessarily unflattering, anyway, since an association might simply reflect some sympathy for liberal or radical activism as opposed to questionable ethics.Bdell555 (talk) 20:06, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I would dispute a contention that it is impossible to "mention" ACORN in a NPOV way. A Chicago Reader article from 1995 quotes the "lead organizer of the feisty ACORN community organization" as saying "Barack has proven himself among our members... we accept and respect him as a kindred spirit, a fellow organizer". It's possible that the Chicago Reader mentions ACORN in order to depict Obama more favourably, while the source I cited mentions ACORN in order to depict Obama less favourably. But that, in and of itself, would not automatically disqualify either source. The Chicago Reader could, in fact, clearly commit the "honour by association" fallacy while the source I cited commits the "guilt by association" fallacy and that would ultimately be of limited relevance because in neither case would the source's conclusion about Obama be cited, what's cited is rather a claim that is being used by both sources as a common starting point for their respective (valid or invalid) "arguments". Misplaced Pages needs to be NPOV, but its sources don't have have to be; they just have to be reliable. While I do not insist that my particular insertion remain, I do think the article would be more informative, and thereby improved, with a brief mention of Obama's work for this group. Keep in mind here that the assumption that a bad apple within ACORN spoils the whole bunch is itself a guilt by association error.Bdell555 (talk) 17:48, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Add it back, sourced to the Chicago Reader. Noroton (talk) 19:57, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

That doesn't seem to be a helpful suggestion, since there's still significant disagreement on whether or not it belongs in the article. S. Dean Jameson 20:02, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

On first sight it looks like yet another anti-Obama attack issue. A quick trip to google shows it's almost if not entirely a matter of conservative bloggers and commentators trying to raise a stink. We have to be very careful about sourcing, and if it does turn out to be yet another trivial issue that gets blown up as a campaign issue, then put it in some part of the presidential campaign article or some special place devoted to these accusations. Wikidemo (talk) 20:05, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I think there's an existing article for these: /dev/null. (A joke for us Unix users; including OSX, of course). LotLE×talk 21:04, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Why are you dragging Obama's 2008 presidential campaign into this? I merely suggest including a notable fact about the Obama of the 1990s without editorializing or otherwise implying that it is of particular relevance to Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. If, with no small indulgence, we assume that material that "conservative bloggers" call attention to during a campaign is inadmissable by that fact alone, note that the Chicago Reader mentions ACORN in a 1995 article about Obama without any mention of Bill Ayers (a case you evidently consider analogous), and the Chicago Reader is not a presidential campaign conservative blogger. This isn't an issue whereby just contemporary "conservative bloggers and commentators" believe a mention of ACORN is relevant to Obama. Not every edit is an "accusation".Bdell555 (talk) 20:36, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd also note that an ACORN "endorsement" appears on barackobama.com. Is BarackObama.com amongst those "conservative bloggers" who are "raising a stink"?Bdell555 (talk) 21:59, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

That's a user blog, not an official campaign post. The site allows any user to create a blog. Domain name notwithstanding, that page bears no more importance than any other blog. --Clubjuggle /C 22:07, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not the party claiming that material from 2008 presidential campaign sources is relevant here. Recall that I'm "indulging" the assumption (in order to dispute Wikidemo's contention that it is exclusively "conservative bloggers" who are trying to draw a connection between ACORN and Obama). Anyway, I'm not sure why you wish to dissociate Obama with barackobama.com when Obama could surely dissociate himself. If Obama never said "I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it..." I would think Obama would be inclined to get such a false claim removed from barackobama.com without any help, especially if "conservative bloggers" are "raising a stink" about it.Bdell555 (talk) 22:38, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

• Nail, meet Wikidemo. Wikidemo, meet nail. Seriously, you've hit the nail squarely on the head, and I'll leave you to this discussion with them now. I stumbled upon this in an RC perusal awhile back, and I have no desire to get drawn into the political fray here at WP. I have no preference for the presidency as yet, and I fear (because of positions I'm taking in this discussion) that I may be tarred with the pro-Obama brush. Good luck to you all. Regards, S. Dean Jameson 20:10, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Wikidemo, Obama was associated with ACORN, a prominent group nationwide. The Chicago Reader didn't write about it because it was an anti-Obama attack but to give it's readers a better understanding of Obama, which is supposed to be our goal. It's worth a line for that reason. You're bringing campaign issues into this is just as much a POV problem as the original sourcing to the Wall Street Journal editorial. A neutral perspective would be, I don't freaking care if it's a pro- or anti-Obama piece of information, give me the important information on Obama and I'll make up my own damn mind. Let the reader do that. And don't tell me you don't want to know about the associations a politician has. Everybody wants to know that. This one isn't huge, and the proposed addition reflects that. Noroton (talk) 21:04, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

The ACORN detail is definitely irrelevant to this biography. Obama had many clients as a lawyer, and we're not about to compile his client list into a general biography. It does start to look like some kind of effort at guilt-by-association, but pretty strained if so (he once represented an organization that later had a member who <did-something-bad>). But whether or not the association actually make him seem guilty is irrelevant, since this just doesn't come close to main bio material in any event. On a side note though, I see that the ACORN article itself is vastly skewed toward criticism, in what really looks like coatracking... I'll have to look through the edit history to see if that imbalance is new. LotLE×talk 20:59, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Before expending a great deal of effort exposing "coatracking" and battling "efforts at guilt-by-association", I'd keep in mind Misplaced Pages:Assume good faith. A number of media sources have mentioned Obama and ACORN in the same article without conspiratorial intent.Bdell555 (talk) 21:22, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

As I already wrote immediately above, whether or not your intention was to create a guilt-by-association is entirely irrelevant. The material is simply not significant for a main biography. Likewise, someone Obama once briefly had as a client, and who was completely above reproach (assuming there actually exists any person or organization above reproach), would not be appropriate to include either. A main bio of a prominent politician is not a place for a list of former clients. LotLE×talk 21:44, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Every new comment by Bdell555 makes the likelihood s/he's merely soapboxing seem higher. E.g. This article makes it clear that Project Vote! was undertaken in direct partnership with ACORN. Yep, Project Vote! once partnered with ACORN.. and with Demos, National Voting Rights Institute, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, Fair Elections Legal Network, as well as other organizations. That's OK though, I'm sure someone associated with each of those organizations has at some point done something wrong... start digging. LotLE×talk 22:05, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

If I inserted the quote "I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career" cited to barackobama.com, would that be less objectionable to you and less undue weight on an ACORN connection than my insertation of the four words "on behalf of ACORN" to the section concerning his 1990s activities?Bdell555 (talk) 22:21, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Nope, more words on an irrelevant detail don't make it relevant (and claiming an ACORN press release as source seems dishonest too, but a better source wouldn't improve relevance). Obviously, Obama has said similar remarks about hundreds of organizations during his career. That's what politicians do: they claim sympathy and commonality with the people they speak to (hopefully within the bounds of accuracy, but still with a spin for the context). We also don't need the comments where Obama claimed to share goals with AARP, the Chamber of Commerce, the UAW, CORE, and everyone else he "has been fighting alongside with" during his career". LotLE×talk 22:32, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Obama continues his organizing work largely through classes for future leaders identified by ACORN and the Centers for New Horizons on the south side. -- Chicago Reader, 1995. How is that a minor, lawyer-client relationship? He was teaching them about community organizing. Noroton (talk) 22:37, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I have removed this comment due to that I posted it out of anger. If I have offended anyone please accept my apologies. Brothejr (talk) 23:11, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Don't miss this anti-Obama report from that conservative rag, The New York Times ("Pragmatic Politics, Forged on the South Side" May 11; I hope it's not behind their subscription wall):

Mr. Obama further expanded his list of allies by joining the boards of two well-known charities: the Woods Fund and the Joyce Foundation. These memberships have allowed him to help direct tens of millions of dollars in grants over the years to groups that championed the environment, campaign finance reform, gun control and other causes supported by the liberal network he was cultivating. Mr. Brazier’s group, the Woodlawn Organization, received money, for instance, as did antipoverty groups with ties to organized labor like Chicago Acorn, whose endorsement Mr. Obama sought and won in his State Senate race.

Nah, a group that involves itself with voter registration drives in Democratic neighborhoods, then has Obama for a lawyer, and which he helps by teaching classes for new leaders and who he gets money for and which endorses him early on in his career ... a relationship worth mentioning in a line in the article .... nah! It's all anti-Obama hype. -- Noroton (talk) 22:51, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

And four words like "Obama worked with ACORN" in the 90s is something readers are best kept ignorant of but the fact the same work led "Crain's Chicago Business to name Obama to its 1993 list of "40 under Forty" powers to be" is a fact that must be noted?Bdell555 (talk) 00:14, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll keep an open mind but I see no evidence as yet that this satisfies WP:WEIGHT or relevancy to the subject of the article, and some evidence that it's a WP:POV issue. If we were to list every single client, association, endorsement, etc., the article would be hundreds of thousands of bytes long. Surely there are dozens if not hundreds of organizations that Obama has been a member of, represented as a lawyer, worked alongside, praised, and so on. Each one has one or two neutral reliable sources out there, or more, to say it happened. That's in the nature of being as famous as Obama. Why highlight this one? The only reason I can see that there is sudden interest in the matter is to impugn Obama by association. The bloggers got hold of this as the attack du jour, and then a few more neutral sources fact checked it. That's all. Nothing to see here. If it actually became a significant enough issue to mention we could do so, in the campaign article, because it's all about the Presidential campaign and not anything revealing about Obama's bio. Anyone who wants to claim otherwise needs to find a significant number of sources to say that it's relevant to Obama's life. A single mention or two in a reliable source just doesn't cut it here. Wikidemo (talk) 01:53, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

When did Obama work with ACORN? I can't find a reliable source that offers a timeline. --Clubjuggle /C 02:06, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

It would appear to be relevant because of the connection to Project Vote!. If the section regarding Project Vote! is going to be included as a positive aspect about Obama, then it should be mentioned that ACORN was a part of that. There are no POV issues here becuase there has been no attempt to link Obama with the criticism directed towards ACORN. If it is not to be included then the Project Vote! aspect should also go, as I don't see how you can mention one without the other. Arzel (talk) 02:48, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Please read the above discussion. ACORN was one of many independent organizations that worked jointly with Project Vote! for common projects. This is not an article on Project Vote! (why isn't there one?!) Obama did legal work for ACORN, as he did for dozens of other clients, and he also tutored members of ACORN, but also many people outside of ACORN (probably from other groups as well). This is a contrived effort to shoe-horn ACORN into a connection with Obama, probably motivated by the idea that ACORN is itself subject to criticism (from what I can see, any wrong-doing associated with ACORN happened later than Obama's minor association with them). It is true that this slight association exists, but it's relevance is far below the level of main-bio material. LotLE×talk 02:56, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Good idea. I've wikilinked Project Vote! in the article. Interested parties can create the article and neutrally describe its association with ACORN, if they so choose. --Clubjuggle /C 03:14, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Following up Clubjuggle's wikilink, I've created a stub article there. Please help to make the article better. Ideally, let's say a little bit about Project Vote! before we add, absent context, "is associated with ACORN". LotLE×talk 03:39, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Not so fast, fellas. ACORN is a big, controversial organization and Obama has strong ties to it in Illinois, and it was influential in helping him in his political career, particularly at the beginning when it really counted Details about Obama's and ACORN's close, important relationship are in an article (in Social Policy, , a quarterly periodical) written sometime after March 2004 and titled Case Study: Chicago - The Barack Obama Campaign. The article is online (but you have to go through their free registration to get it; I did and I urge everyone interested to go through the rigamarole and take a look). The article was written by Toni Foulkes, "a Chicago ACORN leader and a member of ACORN's National Association Board". The two paragraphs below the picture in the article show how close Obama and ACORN were:

1. ACORN picked him out to help with their lawsuit: ACORN noticed him when he was organizing on the far south side of the city with the Developing Communities Project. He was a very good organizer. When he returned from law school, we asked him to help us with a lawsuit to challenge the state of Illinois
2. Obama worked with Project VOTE in 1992: Obama then went on to run a voter registration project with Project VOTE in 1992 that made it possible for Carol Moseley Braun to win the Senate that year. Project VOTE delivered 50,000 newly registered voters in that campaign (ACORN delivered about 5000 of them).
3. Obama's work with Project Vote was done side-by-side with ACORN, according to Barack Obama: Senator Obama said, "I come out of a grassroots organizing background. That's what I did for three and half years before I went to law school. That's the reason I moved to Chicago was to organize. So this is something that I know personally, the work you do, the importance of it. I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.” Source:
4. Getting back to the article in Social Policy, every year since 1992 (at least up to late 2003), Obama has conducted "leadership training" sessions for ACORN, and in Obama's campaigns, ACORN members were volunteers: Since then, we have invited Obama to our leadership training sessions to run the session on power every year, and, as a result, many of our newly developing leaders got to know him before he ever ran for office. Thus, it was natural for many of us to be active volunteers in his first campaign for State Senate and then his failed bid for U.S. Congress in 1996. By the time he ran for U.S. Senate, we were old friends. (Stanley Kurtz in National Review Online article that Rick Blog links to , notes that the author has the year wrong -- the run for Congress was in 2000).
5. How close was Project Vote to ACORN? Well, ACORN founded Project Vote, according to this source, which seems to be a conservative Washington group . I bet there's a source out there that could confirm this, if necessary. Oh, here's a source: New York Times October 20, 2004: Project Vote, the charitable arm of Acorn, will spend at least $16 million in crucial states this year; it spent $1 million in 2000.
6. How big is ACORN? ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) is the nation's largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, with over 350,000 member families organized into 800 neighborhood chapters in 104 cities across the country. Source:

Since Obama and ACORN agree they have a close, important relationship, why don't we mention it? Noroton (talk) 04:01, 13 July 2008 (UTC) (((added NYT source to item #5 -- Noroton (talk) 04:29, 13 July 2008 (UTC))))

copied from user talk:Rick Block I was wondering if you have any other sources for this contention of yours, which appears to be contradicted here:"...when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it..."Bdell555 (talk) 03:16, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Project Vote! and ACORN are different. Project Vote! is a 501c non-profit organization, founded in 1982 (see ). ACORN is member organization founded in 1970 with 1200 local chapters (see ). Project Vote! is an allied organization of ACORN, per , but they are different (but in some ways similar) organizations. The quote from wsjonline is In 1992, Acorn hired Mr. Obama to run a voter registration effort. According to the work history at in 1992 Obama was the director of Illinois Project Vote. He was hired by Project Vote to run a voter registration effort, not ACORN. ACORN was also interested in getting people to register to vote, so they no doubt worked together, but during the voter registration effort Obama did not work for ACORN (at least not primarily - he may have trained ACORN organizers during this time, and may have been paid for this, but his primary job was clearly "Director - Illinois Project Vote"). -- Rick Block (talk) 04:33, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Please reread my last post, especially Item #5, where I added the New York Times quote. Project Vote is an arm of and creation of ACORN. Also, Obama was doing those seminars year after year after year from about 1992 to at least as late as 2003. Come on, he was working hand-in-glove with them. Noroton (talk) 04:45, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Guilt by association or an association worthy of note?

The majority of Noroton's very long descriptions are simply examples of guilt-by-association, most of them reaching quite far to find the alleged association. However, his #4 mentions something of possible encyclopedic value for the biography: every year since 1992 (at least up to late 2003), Obama has conducted "leadership training" sessions for ACORN. If a neutral citation for this can be found, it might be notable to mention in the article (I emphasize the MIGHT here). LotLE×talk 05:00, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

They're not long descriptions, they're quotes. Quotes from Obama and mostly from the ACORN-affiliated author of the Social Policy article, which was hardly anti-Obama. Oh, and a quote from the New York Times. Quotes a/k/a evidence. Evidence of association, not of "guilt". He worked with them, they were important to him, he was important to them. I have this from the Los Angeles Times:

Several community organizers and Altgeld Gardens tenants confirmed Johnson was working on asbestos but said Obama organized residents to act. "He got people to vote with their feet" on the issue, organizer Madeleine Talbot said. At the time, Talbot worked at the social action group ACORN and initially considered Obama a competitor. But she became so impressed with his work that she invited him to help train her staff.

-- Noroton (talk) 05:28, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

If a reader decides that a bio subject is "guilty" after reading a reliably sourced fact in Wikpedia, it's the reader that is making the fallacy, not Misplaced Pages. You can only engage in a logical fallacy if you're making an argument.Bdell555 (talk) 05:41, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:RS doesn't trump WP:NPOV. Either can exist without the other. Misplaced Pages standards require both. --Clubjuggle /C 05:51, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

How am I suggesting that WP:RS trumps WP:NPOV? The error here is contending that something in Misplaced Pages is POV because a reader might draw an invalid conclusion from it. If a reader reads that Obama graduated from Harvard and concludes that Obama is a snob because that reader associates Harvard graduates with snobbery, that's the reader's problem, not ours. We should still say he graduated from Harvard; let readers draw their own conclusions about what that means. I might add that Obama himself doesn't seem to think his association with ACORN is all that incriminating when he says he's been "fighting alongside ACORN" for his "entire career".Bdell555 (talk) 06:06, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Looking over all the quotes I've added to this section (including the ones at timestamps 22:37 and 22:51), who disputes that ACORN and Obama did not work together closely -- Obama helping train ACORN members -- and helping to get funds for the group -- and ACORN providing volunteers who helped in Obama's campaigns along with ACORN's own voter-registration efforts in 2004. These were allies. This is solid enough for a mention with a link to the ACORN article. Noroton (talk) 06:01, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not disputing anything at this point. However, it appears that the real-world discussion of this issue taking place in the sources is mostly a POV matter advanced by anti-Obama partisans. It is natural to be suspicious regarding these sources. It is also natural to ask why the same editors who were proposing a litany of other material seen as derogatory to Obama are now pushing this issue now. Why not push some neutral association that isn't the subject of blogger hit pieces? The threshold for including any controversial information is not just verifiability, but it also has to satisfy weight, POV, and relevance concerns (BLP too but I don't see any BLP issue at the moment). It's up to those proposing to include controversial information to justify this and I just don't see it.

Regarding weight let me get the ball rolling with a rough count of the treatment we give to more or less every single thing from Obama's life (outside of the presidential campaign, his politics, policies, and legislastive accomplishments) covered in this article:

• Schools: Punahou School, Occidental College, Columbia (each a brief mention), Harvard (5 sentences), U Chicago (1/2 sentence)
• Associations: Democratic party, Board of Public Allies (1 year, 1 sentence), Woods Fund of Chicago (9 years, 1/2 sentence), Joyce Foundation (8 years, 1/2 sentence), Chicago Annenberg Challenge (9 years, 1 sentence), Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and the Lugenia Burns Hope Center (1/3 sentence each).
• People: Michelle (wife, 3 sentences), 2 daughters (1 sentence), Tony Rezko (4 sentences), extended family and ancestry (6 sentences), Wright (&Pfleger, 6 sentences)
• Work: Developing Communities Project (3 years - 2 sentences); Gamaliel Foundation (1 sentence); Sydney & Austin and Hopkins & Sutter (summer internships, share 1/2 sentence), Project Vote (6 months, 1 run-on sentence), U Chicago (12 years, 1 sentence), Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland (11 years, 1 sentence), State Legislature (7 years, 10 sentences), 2004 Senate campaign (13 sentences), US Senate (4 years, 8 sentences + long sections on policy, etc).
• Accomplishments: Dreams From My Father (Book on race relations, 2 paragraphs), Audacity of hope (1 paragraph)
• Trips: Kenya 1988 (met Kenyan family, 1 sentence), Bali (several months, 1/2 sentence)
• Activities: Basketball (1 sentence), quit smoking (2 sentences), interest in architecture and chili cooking (1/2 sentence each), poker (1 sentence), left handed (1 sentence) - all this is fluff but not controversial
• Religion and church (4 sentences)
• Other: House and net worth (3 sentences, not including Rezko)

Given the foregoing, I don't see how the relationship of ACORN to the Vote project is of the same magnitude as any of these things as far as being an important part of Obama's life. I see no demonstration as yet that this generated coverage in reliable sources on the same scale as these other things. That Obama/Vote! may have supported ACORN or vice-versa is trivial. Obama must have hundreds of supporters, and he must have bestowed favors on hundreds. How many of those do we cover? Only a handful of the most important ones. - Wikidemo (talk) 08:16, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

If I'm an "anti-Obama partisan", what are you? If there's any suspicious timing here, isn't the timing of today's disappearance of the ACORN article's "Criticism" section equally suspicious? People familiar with Obama's work with ACORN would have not been surprised in the least to see Senator Obama pen this letter, which called for the blocking of a nominee to the Federal Election Commission who allegedly supported a Georgia voter identification requirement. Nor would they be surprised to later learn that both Obama and ACORN joined briefs urging the Supreme Court to overturn Indiana's voter ID law (which, by the way, is stricter than Georgia's), or by Obama's reaction to the court's decision. Information about Obama's interest in chili cooking, on the other hand, suggests nothing about what he might do as a public figure.Bdell555 (talk) 09:22, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

What am I? I generally try to hold the line against disruption and POV problems here at Misplaced Pages. I've never seen the ACORN article having just looked over it, it's obvious what happened. Tipped off by the attempt to tie Obama to ACORN people took a look at that article and saw the mess there. Criticism sections are discouraged but that's only one of the article's many problems. Anyway, your argument seems to be that Obama and ACORN both disfavor Voter ID laws. I don't see what that has to do with the issue under discussion. I trust you're not accusing editors here of being "Obama partisans". If you are, this discussion is devolving. Wikidemo (talk) 10:06, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

If there's any suspicious timing here, isn't the timing of today's disappearance of the ACORN article's "Criticism" section equally suspicious? I resent that implication. The reason that the criticism section disappeared yesterday is that I had never seen the ACORN article before then. That criticism section was a RS|poorly-source piece of partisan coatracking that could very easily have been integrated into the main text while retaining all the content and making only a few cosmetic changes to the text. Given that everything in the criticism section was timelined and the article had a timeline section, one has to wonder why the criticism section was even created in the first place. I fact-checked everything, removed one paragraph that was grossly misleading, tagged (rather than removing) unsourced or poorly-sourced statements, and integrated ALL the content, with the exception of the one grossly misleading paragraph I removed, into the main body of the article. If you feel my edits are partisan, I encourage you to review my history of edits like to disabuse yourself of that notion. --Clubjuggle /C 12:06, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Please see my use of the word IF. Fact is, there is no "suspicious timing" here or anywhere. Your editing is, in fact, an example of what Wikidemo should agree with me is innocent editing and I called attention to it in order to suggest that "why the same editors ... are pushing this issue now" merely insinuates about editors and says nothing about the merits of their edits.Bdell555 (talk) 16:39, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Timing isn't the point - I've rephrased slightly to indicate I did not mean to use the word "now" in that sense. The issue is that editors on this page keep bringing up and pushing the inclusion of apparently irrelevant information that mirrors the various attacks being made by anti-Obama partisans in the world at large. Some editors are doing that repeatedly in serial fashion, to the exclusion of making any constructive contributions to the article. That bogs everything down. At first it was just Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, and Tony Rezko - each of whom, by my above analysis already has as much or more coverage in the article as they deserve. Michel Pfleger snuck in there somehow. Now there's a new piece of guilt by association. Each time we're going through the same routine, which is that those proposing the inclusion make the WP:SYNTH argument that the information says something important about Obama, then fall back on the argument that it's verifiable so it shouldn't be excluded. Next we'll have an interminable argument over weight, POV, sourcing. If we're ever going to get anywhere on this article we ought to agree only to list the bona fide organizations, causes, and people he actually affiliated with - not the clients of his firm, the allies of his friends, outfits that endorsed him, parties he dealt with to further a goal, etc. If you look at the article we're giving 1/2 to 2 sentences to outfits that employed him for years and nonprofits he was on the board of or ran. On that scale even a relatively more significant scandal like Tony Rezko is out of proportion - it gets more coverage than his wife and four times as much as his children. This being a bio article, we can't let it turn into a hodgepodge of controversial tidbits. Wikidemo (talk) 17:10, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I challenge you to be more specific in your allegations and name names if you wish to continue down this road. You've got TWO editors here re the issue at hand (whether to mention ACORN): Noroton and I. Please call attention to edits of mine "on this page" that support your contention that I am "pushing the inclusion of ... information ... in serial fashion, to the exclusion of making any constructive contributions...". I earlier presented argument for why the Bill Ayers case is not analogous here, and you had no response. I added the four words "on behalf of ACORN" (an edit that has been manufactured into a "controversial tidbit" and/or "scandal") to this article, and it was reverted on the grounds that the edit created "guilt by association", which makes no sense since it is people that commit deductive fallacies, not facts/edits (see my "Harvard" example above).Bdell555 (talk) 17:50, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Criticism of Obama shouldn't be in the ACORN article, as well as there shouldn't be mention of him in the Project Vote article. However, to say that mention of him working for ACORN here is POV or some guilt by association is questionable at best. No one here is trying to imply that Obama did something bad with relation to ACORN, and it is apparant that he has been an important contributor to ACORN. To leave it out or insist that it be left out because those that favour Obama think it looks bad sounds a lot like "I don't like it" and censorship. Arzel (talk) 15:12, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I am not an American, I cannot vote, and I have no knowledge of ACORN or Project VOTE! at all. I am not at all qualified to offer comment on this matter, which is why I have left it for others to discuss; however, I do have a couple of questions. Is it unusual for a politician to be associated with either of these organizations? I mean, is it something that is rare enough to make it unusual, and thus (potentially) notable enough to be included? Can anyone give me examples of other politicians who may (at some point) have been associated with either of these organizations? -- Scjessey (talk) 16:03, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if it is unusual or not, but the fact that he has had a relationship with both Project Vote and ACORN since at least 1992 and one is mentioned and the other is not because some people think the unrelated problems of ACORN make it POV to include seems a little strange. It seems to me that this is something on his resume, so it should probably be mentioned here as part of his previous work experience. Arzel (talk) 16:09, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Excellent questions, Scjessey. ACORN is remarkably far left in the context of the United States, so it is unusual for a presidential candidate to have worked so closely with them for so long. Hillary Clinton had her own connections to left-wingers and it isn't an attack on her to observe that, but those connections were in college or shortly thereafter, as far as I know (her college thesis on Saul Alinsky; her work (was it an internship?) with a law firm representing the Black Panthers in New Haven shortly before or after she got her law degree). It wouldn't surprise me if Dennis Kusinich also worked with ACORN, but Kusinich is very unlikely to be president of the United States. If some Republican presidential candidate worked so closely with an equivalent rightwing group, I'd want it in that article as well, and for the exact same reason. Frankly, I'm distressed to look at the Trent Lott article and find that there's no mention of the Council of Conservative Citizens in it, given Senator Lott's long, close association with that radical group. How can we adequately cover Trent Lott without covering his questionable associations with segregationism and racism? (It looks like a lot of the information in this partisan Web page could be sourced and added to that article, and when I get some time I think I'm going to do it.) This isn't an exact analogy -- I'm not saying ACORN is as bad on the left as the CCC is on the right, but we need to cover important aspects of Misplaced Pages subjects. For a WP:WELLKNOWN person, the criteria for inclusion of what editors here may regard as "negative" information is going to be very close to the criteria used for "positive" information. If we see that something is true and important, it needs to be included. Incidentally, neither Obama nor ACORN considers the association to be negative. Neither group has distanced itself from the other. Obama sought and won ACORN's endorsement earlier this year. Noroton (talk) 16:36, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your elaborate response. So you are saying that association with either of these groups is unusual - rare enough to be notable, yes? Few politicians are, or have been, associated with Project VOTE! or ACORN, right? -- Scjessey (talk) 16:48, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Scjessey, I know you too well not to realize you're trying to lay a trap for me. Give me the presidents or presidential candidates, and show me how closely they've worked with ACORN. That's the point. Noroton (talk) 16:58, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

It seems you are unable to answer my question. Please let someone else answer it if you don't know the answer yourself. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:01, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Nobody is able to answer my question? I'm just asking if it is a particularly rare thing for politicians to be associated with Project VOTE! or ACORN (although it would seem the latter may not be as important in this context). -- Scjessey (talk) 18:39, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Dennis Kucinich's Campaign Press Secretary was ACORN's "national communications person" source. To try to answer your request for a difficult generalization, one could say that an advertised association with ACORN is "Kucinichish" (ie. it's not "unusual" for politicians of a certain political persuasion, but holding to that politicial persuasion is itself relatively "unusual" in the US).Bdell555 (talk) 19:24, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I missed this answer earlier, but it doesn't seem to answer my question adequately. I'm not sure what you mean by "a certain political persuasion", or why you reference Dennis Kucinich. Please see my repeated question in the next section. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:17, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

According to Acorn.org, "In November, 1994, the resurgence of the Republican Party in Congress dramatically changed the political picture for ACORN. It posed new threats to long-standing ACORN campaigns ... From its beginning, ACORN had fought against politicians who resisted ACORN's ideas and ACORN's work to build power for low- and moderate-income people. The history of ACORN shows it is stronger than ever and better prepared for the continued struggle." Conservatives in particular see this "struggle" as radical and on occasion of dubious legality. If Obama is a fellow traveller, it is something of interest. This essay, titled "ACORN And Progressive Politics in America", may be an interesting backgrounder that's written from a "progressive" perspective. In any case, I'm not suggesting that we say Obama is radical-left and cite that to an association with ACORN. We rather give a neutral and comprehensive account of Obama's career by mentioning his work with ACORN with appropriate weight and let interested readers draw their own conclusions.Bdell555 (talk) 17:31, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

That's a relevancy argument, and I find it strained because it's indirect. That's one hurdle; the other is to demonstrate that the appropriate weight is anything greater than zero, which it would appear to be on first look given that Obama was never formally affiliated with this organization and that we are giving only brief summary coverage to the organizations he actually did work with.Wikidemo (talk) 17:40, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

1. Your separation of "relevancy" and "weight" needs a supporting argument. I suggest that what's less relevant should be given less weight. 2. "formal" affiliation is a standard for weight/relevancy that you've unilaterally invented. 3) You are splitting hairs here over "formal". Going back to my original edit, for example, I "briefly" and "summarily" noted that his Project Vote! work was "on behalf of ACORN". An edit of that sort does not make more out of the association than it is. Your contention that Obama "did not actually work with" ACORN is disputed.Bdell555 (talk) 18:26, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Your combative tone is rude but I'll do my best to explain Misplaced Pages's inclusion standards for you. Weight is clearly a concern for any disputed content (neutral content and fluff shouldn't be excessive either but unless challenged it doesn't become an issue). Beyond that people have varying ways to describe the standard of inclusion for otherwise neutral, reliably sourced information that doesn't violate all the miscellaneous policies and guidelines (copyvio, BLP, WP#NOT, etc). The most common is relevance - content must be relevant to the notability of the subject of the article. I didn't "unilaterally invent" this - if you want to see for yourself here are 70,000 article talk pages where it's been discussed. Nobody's ever been able to agree on a guideline for this but a lot of people use that standard. It covers the entire encyclopedia and is one way of explaining, for example, why we don't have an extensive discussion of the Obama Girl or Jesse Jackson's microphone incident here despite both of these getting a lot of coverage (many times more than ACORN or Rezko, for instance). I don't believe ACORN is on Obama's resume - no W2, 1099, K1, or board seat. Correct me if I'm wrong. If we're going to start imputing connections between people based on shared efforts and interests, that's not very biographical and it opens the door wide to all kinds of content problems. Wikidemo (talk) 22:37, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec) I'm going to answer Wikidemo's 08:16, 13 July comment here. He makes the point that most of the sources on the Obama/ACORN matter are very partisan. I don't dispute that, but that fact alone doesn't make the matter unimportant. Although we should be suspicious of partisan sources, there are sources out there that are reliable, and I offered a slew of quotes and references to sources that were either neutral or pro-Obama. I wish, Wikidemo, you wouldn't ignore all that. You don't judge the importance of something solely by how prevalent the topic is among the sources that cover the subject, although that should be one factor in how you treat it. We're supposed to exercise our judgment based not only on volume of coverage but on how reasonable it is for us to cover a subject in a certain way (or not cover it). We don't consider only the volume of coverage of Intelligent Design as part of how we fit that into our article on Evolution. By the way, the John Fund article linked to near the top of this thread was written by someone who would get in trouble if he wrote something non-factual; on the other hand, it is an opinion piece and shouldn't be given as much weight as other sources. When it comes to WP:WEIGHT, the Fund piece (like the Kurtz piece in National Review) does show that intelligent, responsible publications have paid attention to this. That means that those two pieces both give this a certain amount of "heaviness" as well as "lightness" in terms of weight. ACORN is worth a short mention. Certainly as much or more than the fact that he's left-handed.

The thing of primary importance about Obama is that he has an excellent chance of becoming president of the United States, and while not drowning out everything else about his life, that fact is going to give more wieght to anything to do with his potential as president in his biography. Your long list of items seems to indicate that we should downplay the possible-president aspect of his life, when that just isn't the reasonable thing to do. As we've seen in recent weeks, candidates can adjust their political positions even during a campaign (and they can adjust them a lot more after the election). That indicates to me that the long, long section on Obama's political positions may be overemphasized in this article, especially when it's a summary of another article. In contrast, the political elements of his biography are reporting on unchangable facts that also tell us something about what kind of president he likely would be if he gets the job. If the most leftwing member of the U.S. Senate is running for president, it's worth knowing just how far left his associations go, especially his close associations. Do we know of many that are closer than this one? How controversial are they? Noroton (talk) 17:52, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Nobody's defending the chili cooking mention, and I already raised the issue that handedness isn't relevant. If anyone wants to challenge these on relevancy or weight grounds I wouldn't oppose. But these are uncontroversial, hence nobody much cares. I would also agree that this article gives too much weight to political positions, most of which are only indirectly related to his biography. If a political issue is a lifetime goal it makes sense that it attaches to him as a person. If a political issue is just an election tactic or a routine professional act as a legislator, those are better treated elsewhere. I think my point about the sources is just as you (Noroton) articulate. I'm not dismissing them for having been picked up by a bunch of partisans, only noting the fact and applying due skepticism for that. The appropriate measure of sourcing to establish weight is the coverage as a relevant issue by neutral reliable sources. Partisans, even intelligent, thoughtful ones, are discounted heavily, as are opinion pieces, fact checks (because they are only reactions to the partisanship), blogs, scandal sheets, pundits, etc. If we go beyond counting sources to consider objective facts and arguments to determine weight and relevancy, because this is a bio article and not a campaign article we should look at the impact and centrality to Obama's own life more heavily than insight into what kind of a president it would be or how it becomes a campaign issue or affects the vote. We have separated things into multiple articles with different scope of coverage. Best to put each thing where it best belongs. Wikidemo (talk) 18:03, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

1. The "controversiality" of a reliably sourced and notable fact is irrelevant to the merits of its inclusion. 2. re "lifetime goal", I'd remind you of Obama's quote, "I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career". 3. re "Partisans ...are discounted heavily", NPOV applies to Misplaced Pages, not to Misplaced Pages's sources. Sources have to be reliable, not non-partisan. Some kid blogger out there might be perfectly threading the needle of non-partisanship between the somewhat leftish New York Times and the somewhat rightish Wall Street Journal. That does not make that blogger a more reliable source than either paper. If a highly partisan but otherwise reliable source starts with the contention that Mr X was born in 1969 to argue that Mr X is evil and nasty, that doesn't mean this source's starting point ("Mr X was born in 1969") can't be cited.Bdell555 (talk) 18:55, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't see a need to source anything to do with ACORN to the Pittsburgh paper, National Review or John Fund's opinion piece in the WSJ. We have alternative sources, and the amount of sourcing of all types confirms the basic information in a reliable way. You say, Partisans, even intelligent, thoughtful ones, are discounted heavily, but WP:WEIGHT doesn't go into that at all (it does mention "significant" viewpoints) and we can meet WP:RS. We're actually not looking to add reporting on any viewpoints to the article, just the facts. Nor am I looking for great detail.

I think we should say something simple like He became a political ally of the Illinois chapter of ACORN, a nationwide group of community activists, and for many years he taught a seminar to train its members -- but I haven't looked into what exact language should be used. I'm fine with leaving details to other articles. In addition to its importance to our readers who want to find out about him as a potential president, his association with ACORN is also important here because it was important to him in his political career (running for state Senate, Congress and U.S. Senate) and because as a community organizer he worked with ACORN, doing some of the things they do; both he and ACORN found they were very compatable with each other and worked together in several different ways. These are biographical, not just presidential-campaign details, that have impact and centrality to Obama's own life, having to do with his progress in his political career for more than a decade. Noroton (talk) 19:09, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

A concrete suggestion

If I may interject a concrete suggestion, how about suspending this discussion and working on adding something to Early life and career of Barack Obama (of which the section here is meant to be a summary) based on the Chicago Reader quote (Obama continues his organizing work largely through classes for future leaders identified by ACORN and the Centers for New Horizons on the south side)? It seems we're putting the cart before the horse here. I believe Obama's association with ACORN (particularly the training work he has done for ACORN) is perfectly legitimate for that article. After hashing out what should go there, we can resume discussion about how (or whether) it needs to be summarized here. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:12, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

That makes a whole lot of sense. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:17, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

His association with ACORN appears to have started in some way before he went to Harvard Law School, and it should be mentioned in that article in some detail, given the sources I've quoted above. But ACORN became important toward the tail end of the "Early life" section and then continued being important into his early career in elective office. So yes, it's very much worth adding there, but no one article covers the scope of his association with ACORN: community organizing together, the Project Vote get-out-the-vote effort, Obama sending grant money toward ACORN, training ACORN members, attracting ACORN members to volunteer in his campaign, ACORN helping with get-out-the-vote efforts in his 2004 race for U.S. Senate, National ACORN endorsing him in 2008. Noroton (talk) 19:28, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

You still haven't answered my question, Noroton. Are there many other politicians (by which I mean senators, congressmen, governors, etc.) who have had associations with Project VOTE! and/or ACORN, or is this something that is limited to Obama and a few others? A simple yes or no would suffice. If Noroton is unable to answer, I would welcome a response from anyone. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:01, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Less involvement than Obama's direct community organizing experience (which by itself is probably rare), but John Edwards was apparently connecting with the same sorts of folks , and Howard Dean appears to be supportive as well as Ted Kennedy . -- Rick Block (talk) 21:55, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

It would seem that you are saying that having some sort of association is unremarkable, but Obama's level of association is perhaps more than usual. Would that be a reasonable conclusion? -- Scjessey (talk) 22:30, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm making no conclusions (I haven't heard of ACORN before today either), just letting everyone in on some links I found (sorry). -- Rick Block (talk) 00:04, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Middle name in infobox

I admit that I wasn't able to read every bit of what posts there were in the archive concerning this issue, but there was at least one section of one archive that argued against including his middle name at the top of the infobox because that space is reserved for names as the candidates are generally known (ie Al Gore, John Kerry, etc.). It should be noted, however, that neither of those people, nor countless others (George Walker Bush, William Jefferson Clinton, Henry Ross Perot, Ronald Wilson Reagan, and the list goes on) are noted by their familiar names, but by their full names. So unless some other kind of explanation can be given for why we list in their respective infoboxes John Forbes Kerry, Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., and William Jefferson Clinton, there is obviously every reason to list Obama as Barack Hussein Obama, II here. Comment here please or I will go ahead and make the appropriate change. And, for the record, going now and changing the infoboxes of all the people I mentioned here and coming back saying I'm full of it doesn't address the point. --DanielNuyu (talk) 11:01, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I refer you to two things: John McCain and Barack Obama presidential primary campaign, 2008#Obama's name. So please don't. Wikidemo (talk) 12:14, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Do we know how Obama's name appeared on the ballot for his Senatorial race? Or how it will appear on the presidential ballots (assuming he's the actual nominee, etc). But actually, since Senate is his highest office, is indicated in the infobox, and there is a factual answer about what the ballots said, I think we should treat that as binding. LotLE×talk 18:05, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, just to make sure I'm unambiguous: The name of the article should definitely be the most commonly used "Barack Obama"; the lead of the article should definitely use "Barack Hussein Obama II" as his complete name. The question is only what the office holder infobox should say; which should be the exact name he was elected as. LotLE×talk 18:08, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I highly doubt the ballot had the "II", since that was only recently uncovered on the birth certificate when some people were trying to claim he wasn't a natural-born citizen. I'd guess the same applies to the middle name, but I don't have any source. However, my understanding has always been that we go with the official Senate/House/other office website and use the name that is used there on the office holder infobox, which would be Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton and actually would be John Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy, not "John Forbes Kerry" or "Ted Kennedy". I've not particularly seen anywhere that we go by the ballot which would also be a lot harder to verify. Tvoz/talk 18:31, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

This page lists all the Senators from Illinois, and is compiled by Senate professional staff rather than by Obama's staff. This produces the same spelling as that Tvoz points to, so I think we're good with the existing infobox (if the Senate historian used a different spelling than Obama's own staff, I'd defer to the Senate historian; but that's a moot issue). LotLE×talk 18:38, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Tvoz's comment on the name.--Utahredrock (talk) 18:40, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Some trivia: I went to normalize the infoboxes of some other senators, where the infobox did not necessarily follow the name as office holder. I found that for Kennedy, the Senate historian and Kennedy's staff both used "Edward M. Kennedy". However, in Kerry's case, the Historian used "John F. Kerry" while Kerry's staff used "John Kerry". Confusing... in this case, as well as deferring to the Senate historian, I happened to have been a Massachusetts voter, and saw the actual ballot which read "John F. Kerry"... in other states, I wouldn't have that knowledge off-hand. LotLE×talk 18:56, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd agree about using the Senate historian/Biographical Directory as definitive source too in the event of a conflict with what the staff uses - and of course this is especially so for the office holders from the past who don't have websites to look at. Tvoz/talk 19:00, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Re Rezco: ya guys see this?

South Side alderwoman Toni Preckwinkle's somewhat cryptic criticism of B. re the Rezco affair to the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza (not much but here it is): “Who you take money from is a reflection of your knowledge at the time and your principles.”  ${\displaystyle \sim }$ Justmeherenow (  ) 22:31, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Lizza: "During the 1992 Presidential campaign, ran a voter-registration drive that placed him at the center of the city’s politics. That year, Illinois elected the first African-American woman to the U.S. Senate, Carol Moseley Braun, and Bill Clinton became the first Democratic Presidential candidate to carry Illinois since Lyndon Johnson, in 1964. Meanwhile, Obama practiced civil-rights law at a firm admired in the city’s progressive circles, and became a popular lecturer in the law school at the University of Chicago. He was on the board of two liberal foundations that spread grant money around Chicago, and he settled in Hyde Park.
"Considerable (Hyde Park Herald) coverage was given to two institutions: the local food co-op, where Obama shopped every Saturday, and the Independent Voters of Illinois–Independent Precinct Organization, or I.V.I.-I.P.O., one of the neighborhood’s most influential political groups. There was a new political force in Hyde Park as well. Real-estate developers were swooping in to rehabilitate low-income housing. On more than one occasion, the Hyde Park Herald reported on the rise in campaign donations from these developers to South Side politicians; in 1995, it ran a front-page article about Tony Rezko, who was then a very active new donor on the scene."  ${\displaystyle \sim }$ Justmeherenow (  ) 22:44, 13 July 2008 (UTC) "E. J. Dionne, Jr., of the Washington Post, wrote about this transition in a 1999 column after Daley was reëlected. Dionne wrote about a young Barack Obama, who artfully explained how the new pinstripe patronage worked: a politician rewards the law firms, developers, and brokerage houses with contracts, and in return they pay for the new ad campaigns necessary for reëlection. “They do well, and you get a $5 million to $10 million war chest,” Obama told Dionne. It was a classic Obamaism: superficially critical of some unseemly aspect of the political process without necessarily forswearing the practice itself. Obama was learning that one of the greatest skills a politician can possess is candor about the dirty work it takes to get and stay elected."  ${\displaystyle \sim }$ Justmeherenow (  ) 23:01, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Is this from a New Yorker article? If so, which one? When was it published? Thanks.--Utahredrock (talk) 22:59, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Ryan Lizza (2008-07-21). "Making It:How Chicago shaped Obama". The New Yorker. - I've seen it now, a wonderful piece that I'm looking forward to reading in more detail. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. Though it's more of an essay style than our encyclopedia and covers a narrower slice of Obama's life, it is a biography and it's interesting to see how it addresses things and how much weight it gives to various things. I also note it's more than twice as long as our entire article so more expansive on just about everything. I see it mentions basketball twice but nothing about left-handedness or chili cooking. What are you thinking about it? Wikidemo (talk) 23:18, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

(I gotta leave to go into the West Village here but---- ) Just reflecting on the New Yorker's excellent job: even if quantifying %ages of text is wrong, it wouldn't hurt to figure out what % the NYer piece about B.'s Illinois political career talks about iffy associates. It's probably not that high a % of actual paragraphs within the dozen-or-so paged article, really----yet what is there is pretty nuanced. So maybe we (heh!) we look at our WP article's treatment of Illinois politics and dedicate the exact same percentage? I'm actually (halfway) serious here! (Which maybe would end up making it only a line or two. Anyway, I'm not making any senes------ but I gotta go. Bye for now. Ciao!  ${\displaystyle \sim }$ Justmeherenow (  ) 23:21, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

How's this for a précis?

"I simply said, 'I think this guy is outstanding and is certainly somebody who is worthy of an interview,' " Obama told the Chicago Tribune in a lengthy interview recounting his Rezko contacts. Rezko was later convicted of federal corruption charges, and although the case did not implicate Obama, his Rezko association has caused him significant political embarrassment.----The WASHINGTON POST

 ${\displaystyle \sim }$ Justmeherenow (  ) 17:47, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

 ${\displaystyle \sim }$ Justmeherenow (  ) 19:52, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

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