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But I realize there are many anti-Obama people who want to cast doubt on Obama so they use "christian" as his religion, not United Church of Christ. Since there are 120 million people against Obama in the U.S. out of 300 million, you're never going to win that argument even if you are right. [[User:Midemer|Midemer]] ([[User talk:Midemer|talk]]) 01:55, 25 February 2012 (UTC) |
But I realize there are many anti-Obama people who want to cast doubt on Obama so they use "christian" as his religion, not United Church of Christ. Since there are 120 million people against Obama in the U.S. out of 300 million, you're never going to win that argument even if you are right. [[User:Midemer|Midemer]] ([[User talk:Midemer|talk]]) 01:55, 25 February 2012 (UTC) |
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== real problems with this article just because of inbreeding == |
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Inbreeding is when a college department faculty got their degrees from there. After a while, there is no new ideas, just preaching to the choir. |
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I fear this has happened to the Obama article. The same old people say no, no, no, and chase people away. |
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I have read the summary of the article. Some of it is ok but some of it suffers from inbreeding. There are some points which shouldn't be there. For example, McCain is just an old man and an obscure person. Look at President James Madison. He ran against DeWitt Clinton. The President is not defined by the man he ran against. |
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Instead, look at the most important things of Obama. Draw up a list of the 10 most important things and all of those must be included. One of the 10 things is that he is President, is American, and was Senator. |
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I will fix things. [[User:Midemer|Midemer]] ([[User talk:Midemer|talk]]) 02:00, 25 February 2012 (UTC) |
Revision as of 02:00, 25 February 2012
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Template:WikiProject Columbia University
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Index 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80 81, 82, 83 |
Historical diffs, Weight, Race |
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Private sector payrol employment image POV
This image comes from his campaign website and is a selective snapshot of favourable data which does not represent the expert consensus of the broader community. It should be removed 207.216.253.134 (talk) 22:10, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
- Can you please more specific? I'm afraid there is no such section in this article. Phearson (talk) 03:46, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
- The OP seems to be referring to File:Private sector jobs dec.jpg in the Economic policy section. Fat&Happy (talk) 04:41, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
- Completely agree, File:Private sector jobs dec.jpg (1) does not adhere to NPOV because it is from barackobama.com, (2) violates WP:IMAGE RELEVANCE because it presents data impertinent to his tenure, and (3) is misleading because it presents absolute values (i.e., # jobs created/lost) instead of percentages, (4) it presents only private sector statistics, and (5) is a copyright violation since it was not produced by federal government as claimed (created by "Obama for America"). I've replaced it with File:UR BLS Jan09 Jan12.PNG, which assuages these concerns. —Eustress talk 01:59, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
- I just removed File:Us jobs 200709 201112.jpg, which is the same as the previously problematic image under discussion, only it is not a copy-and-paste from barackobama.com. —Eustress talk 05:06, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
- The data in the file is different then the first time, it is produced base on the data from Bureau of Labor Statistics, it is also total employment (not just private), and there is no copyright violations because it is my own work based on federal agency data. Innab (talk) 05:55, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
- I still don't think absolute values are very meaningful... Can you at least make the graph more compact? It's way too big. Shrink the y-axis a bit. —Eustress talk 06:03, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
- Ok. I made it a little smaller, but on my high resolution screen it would be really hard to read, if it any smaller. Innab (talk) 16:42, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
- I still don't think absolute values are very meaningful... Can you at least make the graph more compact? It's way too big. Shrink the y-axis a bit. —Eustress talk 06:03, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Character or personality of Obama?
This article is an excellent review of events in the President's life. But I wonder; what is the man like? Some may say this is not encyclopedic content, but peeking at the page of the famously moral Cato the Younger reveals this opening paragraph:
Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis (95 BC, Rome – April 46 BC, Utica), commonly known as Cato the Younger (Cato Minor) to distinguish him from his great-grandfather (Cato the Elder), was a politician and statesman in the late Roman Republic, and a follower of the Stoic philosophy. A noted orator, he is remembered for his stubbornness and tenacity (especially in his lengthy conflict with Julius Caesar), as well as his immunity to bribes, his moral integrity, and his famous distaste for the ubiquitous corruption of the period.
Since we can include personality and character traits of long-passed historical figures, I vote that we do the same for modern historical figures. TheThomas (talk) 16:48, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
- Because they can sue us, we have to be a lot more careful with biographical material on living persons. If a respected and neutral commentator, with some qualifications in assessing personalities, has made a relevant comment about Obama, it may be able to be included, but pure opinion doesn't belong. HiLo48 (talk) 21:48, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
- This looks pretty good to fit that bill. Unit for Study of Personalty in Politics. I've read the pages on McCain and Obama, they look neutral and comprehensive. In the page for Ron Paul the authors complained of the time and expense that are spent building these personality profiles, so I trust they are well-supported assertions. Tell me what you think.72.187.98.128 (talk) 01:02, 28 January 2012 (UTC)TheThomas (talk) 01:03, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
- If you can provide a number of reliable sources to back the assertion that the president's personality is X, then sure, include it. But, as historians are wont to point out, it is impossible to do objective history like this when the historian lived during the time of the person in question. As such, you're not likely to find that sources agree well enough on Mr. Obama's personality that it would warrant inclusion in the lede. Magog the Ogre (talk) 03:07, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
- I think it would be easy to find multiple sources saying "Obama is an ambitious man", but I would prefer to find something more potent than a news article stating its opinion of Obama. I think inserting this information in the lead would be overkill. I was not planning to do that. In fact, I would prefer someone else edit this information into the article where they see i as appropriate. This article is beyond my level of writing expertise. This Political Psychology paper mentions many of the same traits as the other I've posted: agreeable, pragmatic, and deliberative. 72.187.98.128 (talk) 05:47, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- If you can provide a number of reliable sources to back the assertion that the president's personality is X, then sure, include it. But, as historians are wont to point out, it is impossible to do objective history like this when the historian lived during the time of the person in question. As such, you're not likely to find that sources agree well enough on Mr. Obama's personality that it would warrant inclusion in the lede. Magog the Ogre (talk) 03:07, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
- Cato the Younger is also unusual in that he's primarily remembered for his personality; and he's far enough in the past that there's a clear historical consensus on what his personality was. There's no such consensus on Obama, nor is his personality a particularly big part of what makes him notable. Looking over our other presidents and other articles on modern political leaders, almost none of them devote time to exploring people's perceptions of their personality -- it's just not an important factor (and there's really not going to be any consensus on the personality of any political figure in this US political climate; I see no real point to covering arguments back-and-forth about something like that.) --Aquillion (talk) 16:35, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
Brazil
Is part of his family from Brazil ? Please dame la pija (talk) 21:38, 30 January 2012 (UTC) Please dame la pija (talk) 21:38, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- Nope. Obama's father was Kenyan, and his mother was American with mostly English heritage. To a lesser extent, she had Irish, Welsh, and German heritage. No Brazilian connection anywhere. 217.120.178.21 (talk) 17:30, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
Favorite Animal
According to Politico, Barack Obama cited that his favorite animal was the egret, a type of white heron. I think that this is an important addition as it may give school children a research topic.
Sources: - http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/72167.html - In dreams of my father, Obama describes seeing an egret for the first time with his father and he states "[egrets] embody [the] spiritual freedom ... of the formerly subdued" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.28.186.30 (talk) 02:32, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
Heading: Libya → Ghaddafi
The title Gaddafi is better because intervention ended with Gaddafi's death, and most intervention consisted of targeting Gaddafi. Its also been discussed here. Pass a Method talk 08:40, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose - I changed it back to Libya once already and the brief discussion linked above ensued. The section is about US involvement in the 2011 military intervention in Libya, and it is true that Ghaddafi was the leader of Libya. However, changing the title gives undue weight to that fact by implying that the purposes of the military action was to target Ghaddafi. The claim made (on my talk page, linked above) that US military intervention ended with Ghaddafi's death is not stated anywhere in the section. If the implication I refer to, or the claim made on my talk page can be supported by references, that is a different story, although the section is still about overall intervention, not a single person. Frank | talk 13:45, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose - I've just changed it back to "Libya" as well. The section refers to US activities in Libya in general, in contrast to the section on Bin Laden, for example. Since this has been changed back twice now, I hope it will not be changed again until a consensus has been reached for doing so on this talk page. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:15, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
Unemployment graph
Someone added this graph to the article – is this appropriate? It seems like a fairly selective bit of data, given the obvious shortcomings of the unemployment figure itself (which only charts benefit recipients, not long-term unemployed), and it goes against WP:SYNTH to imply that Obama is responsible for the unemployment figure. We could just as easily do the DJIA or GDP or number of private- vs. public-sector jobs created, but none of these really tell the whole story. —Designate (talk) 19:11, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
- I understand your concern. I think the visualization is helpful since employment is mentioned 6 times in the section and the unemployment rate is specifically mentioned in the section 3 times. But perhaps it would be more appropriate on Presidency_of_Barack_Obama#Economy? —Eustress talk 19:43, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
- You're right that none of these tell the whole story, but on that basis we wouldn't have an article at all, because no single "fact" in it now tells the whole story. And opponents of leaders always rush to talk about unemployment figures and that leader when they're not looking good. HiLo48 (talk) 19:58, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
- The graph appears to be an accurate synthesis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, it lacks an important feature: any information on what the economy was doing when the Obama administration took office. The reference source data from the LBS goes back to 2002, (trying to paste a link--http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000) and as you can see, the point where the inserted graph starts, January 2009, is the steepest part of the curve. The current graph should be extended one year on the left, to January 2008, which is when the unemployment rate started to skyrocket. The pre-Obama part could be shaded or separated by a vertical line to indicate that it was before his presidency. Without this, the graph gives the reader no way to tell that there was an ongoing economic crisis already in progress at the starting point of the graph. Graphical information jumps out at the reader, so as well as accurate, it must be clear in its implications. This kind of graph generation beyond my skills. Can anyone else do it? Eustress?, did you do the original? CouldOughta (talk) 04:15, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- I can make the change but think it's best as is. I feel the image should only portray the UR during Obama's tenure in order to be pertinent to the article (see WP:PERTINENCE), and I believe context is adequately provided for with (1) the link to unemployment rate in the caption (article there has historical UR back to 1990s) and (2) the link to Late-2000s recession in the first paragraph of the section. —Eustress talk 20:50, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- It's very pretty, but is the graph even needed? Biographies of Living Persons are generally meant to be written from an historical perspective, but this graph represents data that has just been published, and it will need to be updated each month as new data comes out. Also, its existence presupposes a direct connection between the unemployment rate and who the President is. Perhaps this sort of thing is best left out of this article. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:11, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- The chart you removed gave a much clearer picture of the unemployment/jobs issue than the BLS chart. Regardless, I don't believe either are appropriate for this article. Too much explanation is needed. The Presidency of Barack Obama article is much more appropiate, perhaps for both charts/graphs with explanations of the data in the body. Unless there are indicators in the current graph for when the stimulus package started going into effect, and the downtrend prior to the inauguration, it currently depicts nothing notable. Dave Dial (talk) 22:28, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- FWIW, I would suggest that none of these charts are really notable to the BLP of Barack Obama, but may be fair game for Presidency_of_Barack_Obama#Economy (which discusses the matter in some detail) as suggested above. We could go into enough detail on his policies as President to render that article obsolete, but why bother? This article should focus on the overall life of the man and let other articles cover the detailed policies of the president. Wilhelm Meis (Quatsch!) 08:23, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
- I think the charts are very relevant to Obama's economic policy impact. The economic charts are also present on Bill Clinton and George W. Bush articles. Innab (talk) 16:47, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
- The economic chart on Bill Clinton's page extends back through the presidencies of several earlier presidents, showing the overall trends. The Clinton-only part shows the decrease in the deficit, but without the earlier information, it would be impossible to tell that the decrease was a change from the previous trends. A UR chart that showed this information for Obama's administration would be useful in placing his presidency's economic efforts in context. (CouldOughta, not signed in) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.179.93.64 (talk) 15:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- I think the charts are very relevant to Obama's economic policy impact. The economic charts are also present on Bill Clinton and George W. Bush articles. Innab (talk) 16:47, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
- FWIW, I would suggest that none of these charts are really notable to the BLP of Barack Obama, but may be fair game for Presidency_of_Barack_Obama#Economy (which discusses the matter in some detail) as suggested above. We could go into enough detail on his policies as President to render that article obsolete, but why bother? This article should focus on the overall life of the man and let other articles cover the detailed policies of the president. Wilhelm Meis (Quatsch!) 08:23, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Race & categories
This article has been removed from the category "American Christians" and been placed in the "African-American Christians" category. I understand that the former category is the parent of the latter, but the appearance is that Wikipedia believes that Blacks need to be segregated from the other American Christians. I suggest leaving Black Americans, including President Obama, in the American Christians category even though they are also in their own Christian category. Alternatively, merge the African-American Christians category into the American Christians category. SMP0328. (talk) 03:15, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
- I would support merging the categories, but that's an issue for WP:CFD. They could just as easily decide that Category:American Christians should not be diffused, or make some other recommendation. Fat&Happy (talk) 20:56, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
As far as his personal image, there are some terms that he brought into widespread use.
This is a good addition. Think hard. I can think of some of them. They include shellacking and teachable moment. Neither term was used until Obama used them. There are a few more.
There are also some events during his Presidency that are really not part of his biography. These should be trimmed. Anything that he was not a major proponent and waged a major public campaign for is potentially good material. The other stuff is not and should be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Midemer (talk • contribs) 06:29, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Christianity
Romney was criticized for using the term severely conservative. Nobody uses that term. Some suggest he is a fake conservative and was trying to overcompensate.
Likewise, some Obama supporters (but not me) try to go overboard and insist he is Christian because of the previous controversy. However, Christians do not call themselves that except to foreigners who can't speak English. Christians call themselves Catholic or Methodist, etc. Other politician's articles use United Church of Christ in the box. It is also possible that opponents of Obama want Christianity in the box to highlight the un-natural use of the word. Again, why not UCC?
Also Obama did not denounce the UCC. He only resigned from being a deacon or a member of the particular congregation. As such, I am fixing the infobox.
Midemer (talk) 06:36, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
- "Christians do not call themselves that except to foreigners who can't speak English." — what??? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 06:44, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Ask someone what their religion is? They say "Baptist" or "Catholic". Ask them in a foreign country and they might say "Christian".
But I realize there are many anti-Obama people who want to cast doubt on Obama so they use "christian" as his religion, not United Church of Christ. Since there are 120 million people against Obama in the U.S. out of 300 million, you're never going to win that argument even if you are right. Midemer (talk) 01:55, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
real problems with this article just because of inbreeding
Inbreeding is when a college department faculty got their degrees from there. After a while, there is no new ideas, just preaching to the choir.
I fear this has happened to the Obama article. The same old people say no, no, no, and chase people away.
I have read the summary of the article. Some of it is ok but some of it suffers from inbreeding. There are some points which shouldn't be there. For example, McCain is just an old man and an obscure person. Look at President James Madison. He ran against DeWitt Clinton. The President is not defined by the man he ran against.
Instead, look at the most important things of Obama. Draw up a list of the 10 most important things and all of those must be included. One of the 10 things is that he is President, is American, and was Senator.
I will fix things. Midemer (talk) 02:00, 25 February 2012 (UTC)