Talk:White House

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Contents

[edit] This was an interesting article

I think I had learned more about the White House just by reading this article itself for than I would have had I actually physically been there. www.geocities.com/berniethomas68 15:26, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism?

"Those open houses sometimes became rowdy: in 1829, President Andrew Jackson had to leave for a hotel when roughly 20,000,000,000,000 citizens celebrated his inauguration inside the White House."

I didn't know there were 20 trillion people in the United States.

[edit] Breaches

I can't think of a better article to try and have a mention of White House intruders, but can't for the life of me think how to work it into the article which doesn't really touch on the history of the White House in the 20th Century much. Anybody else have a suggestion? Sherurcij 19:18, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

Make a section entitled The White House in the 20th and 21st Centuries.
Nuttyskin 21:52, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

White House → White House, Washington – White House should redirect to dissambigious page AzaToth talk 20:25, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~
  • Oppose. But would consider a move to "The White House" -- Philip Baird Shearer 08:27, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment — there are more official 'white houses' than the white house in wasington, for example the white house in Moskow –AzaToth talk 14:50, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Primary topic dis-ambiguation makes sense here. There already is a dis-ambiguation page linked to from here at White House (disambiguation). Georgia guy 17:16, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose FearÉIREANN 19:53, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose Overwhelmingly most common meaning, pre-disambiguation will just create a huge disambiguation mess. Kusma (talk) 19:47, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:50, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Concur with Kusma - clearly the most common use by a mile. Raul654 03:52, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. --Aude 04:35, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. 63.231.54.51 22:53, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. The Russian White House is famous, too. -Hapsiainen 01:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Not outside Russia and one of two states. This White House is known in every country on the planet. If this one was only known in the US, or if the Russian one was known the world over, then a disambigulation page would make sense, but where one usage is worldwide and one isn't, making this page a disambigulation page would make no sense. For the same reason, Dublin uses the Irish capital, not all places call Dublin, London is the UK capital, not all places for London. FearÉIREANN 18:02, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
      • I suppose that you meant "one or two", because "one of two" means 50 percent. I think that the Russian White House is famous at least in the neighbouring countries, and also in countries that were part of Soviet Union. Sweden is neither kind of country, so the number of countries is even larger. But I also know that both of us are just presuming. That's why I hoped for votes from other countries, not for a certain result. -Hapsiainen 20:49, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose -- By far the most commonly known and most expected article should be here when nothing else even comes close. DreamGuy 17:55, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose as per Georgia guy. Vegaswikian 00:45, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose -- but what about White House brand vinegar? It didn't even make the disamb page... LuiKhuntek 07:25, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Does anyone have any info on the annual cost of running the white house (staff, facilities, state dinners, etc.)?

I notice that by now all the opposents live in United States except Jtdirl. AzaToth lives in Sweden, me in Finland. I smell systemic bias. Of course in United States their White House is the overwhelmingly most famous White House. But we need more opinions from other countries. -Hapsiainen 01:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I am a news fanatic (I work among other things as a journalist)and follow media coverage far more than most people, watching BBC, TV5, ITN, RTÉ, RAI etc. In two decades of constant TV coverage I've only heard media coverage of one other White House in English (and English Wikipedia, like all WPs, uses the name most used by speakers of that language) and that was for the Russian White House and I have only heard that a handful of times. Wikipedia can be annoying americocentric on occasions but this isn't one of those cases. International usage means the US president's residence when using the White House in excess of 99% of the time IMHO. If I thought this page was just another example of americocentrism on WP I'd say it. But it isn't. It is the reality. For the overwhelming majority of English speakers there is only one White House, the place Bush lives. FearÉIREANN 01:20, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • You must separate whats happening now, and what has happend, When I think of the White House, I both think of the US Presidental Residence, and I think of the Jeltsin attack in \approx 1990 →AzaToth 14:04, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Best Known

i dont think the white house is the worlds most famous residence--Prunetucky 02:34, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Please comment on this

At Talk:The West Wing I begun a discussion about whether that article should focus on the West Wing of the White House. Please consider participating in that discussion. Thanks. 66.167.139.201 20:12, 18 December 2005 (UTC).

[edit] Whitehouse.com and .org?

Should these be mentioned? Whitehouse.com is an infamous pornography site, depending on accidental hits from those seeking the real site, while whitehouse.org is a satire/parody of the Bush administration. -Kasreyn 08:24, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Zip Code?

What's the zip code?Cameron Nedland 02:55, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Take yer pick:

  • Google Maps says 20006.
  • Yahoo Maps says 20502-0001.
  • Whitehouse.gov says 20500.
  • Amazon Yellow Pages says 20500-0003.
  • Wikipedia ZIP Code says "While the White House itself is physically located in ZIP Code 20006, it specifically has the ZIP Code 20500" and "The White House has its own secret ZIP+4 Code, separate from the publicly-known 20500, for the President of the United States and his family to receive private mail."

But I wouldn't trust Wikipedia. ;-) --Tysto 00:14, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] White House rooms

I'm considering documenting the entire White House, room by room, to the extent that the material is available. I've already done most of the research out of personal interest, and I find that there are notable things to say about nearly every area but no one site that already aggregates them. This could be a great place for aggregate information on the Blue Room (once the president's office), the Diplomatic Reception Room (once the boiler room), the Lincoln Bedroom (once the president's study), and even the family kitchen (once Margaret Truman's bedroom). I've found excellent diagrams and photos at the Library of Congress as well as some photos from presidential libraries (altho the copyrights are less clear in those cases). I ask only because this is such a strong personal interest that I would like the perspective of others on:

  1. overall value
  2. format of titles ("Room Room (White House)" or "Red Room of the White House")
  3. format of articles
  4. how much help I could expect

The East Wing, West Wing, basement, and third floor present problems, because very little is known about them (I can't find a floor plan or pics of the East Wing), but certain rooms besides the Oval Office are notable (Cabinet Room, Roosevelt Room, Press Briefing Room in the WW, theater in the EW, bowling alley in the basement). It would be a pretty big task, but it is the White House, and a hundred or so articles wouldn't put a dent in the Simpsons article space. --Tysto 00:30, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

  • I've started this effort now, using "Name of Room (White House)" as the article title and creating Category:Rooms in the White House. I'll confine the effort to the best-known rooms at first and have uploaded LOC floor plans of the first and ground floors. I found a copule of very good floor plans of the second floor, but they're not government-made and therefore not freely licensable. Is anyone interested in doing a high-quality diagram for WP based on it? Or know a Wikipedia who does this kind of thing? I'll post the question in Commons:Village pump. --Tysto 17:53, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History

Some knowledgable person should put in more about the early history of the President's House -- original design and models (an Irish mansion, as I recall?), destruction in the War of 1812, open access during Lincoln administration (the Lincoln era floorplan is somewhere on the web), trivia and lore. 18:04, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

  • I think its important to include history of it, maybe some mention of the burning of white house during 1812, and contruction of white house Gsingh 18:35, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Ah, Wikipedia.... I've restored the history section which was replaced with vandalism by user:Bilanz06 (the self-styled "physician god...walter brozzo"). Instead of reverting, IP user user:70.247.58.111 deleted the vandalism text without checking to see if the vandal deleted anything, so the history was temporarily in Wikilimbo. --Tysto 21:46, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Potomac or Pamunkey?

IP User 69.121.98.123 changed the reference to Washington's house on the "Pamunkey River" to "Potomac River" (his/her only contribution), which I suspect is hypercorrection, but I wasn't able to easily determine it. Can anyone confirm? --Tysto 14:50, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] robots.txt

From a very cursory look, it appears to me that the robots.txt file is concealing only files which are intended for embedding in other pages, and that the equivalent content is available by other URLs. If true, this should be mentioned. Has anyone looked more closely into this? GMcGath 17:43, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

robots.txt files cannot “shield” or “block” anything from anybody. It can merely ask politely that web robots don't index certain pages. A request which is in fact ignored by most everybody. And that the inbuilt search-engine is “controlled” by its creators goes without saying, just like Google is controlled by Google and Washington Post search is controlled by Washington Post, etc. to say it is “controlled by the U.S. government” while perhaps strictly true, is needlessly alarmist, insinuating some sinister plot. Rune X2 12:21, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
And really, with all due respects, The Inquirer as a reference?

[edit] 1601 Pennsylvania Avenue

Why does the article state 1601? --CoolGuy 02:43, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


It was just a piece of Vandalism by 208.98.134.171. You don't need to worry about creating talk threads every time a piece of vandalism occurs - if it is just basic rubbish (which this was, the user also changed the construction date to 1992) then it can just be reverted. SFC9394 10:23, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Broad rewrite

I've just completed a fairly broad rewrite to include more about early history, structure, link to rooms, and references. I have also reordered the images to better correlate with the text. It is not perfect, some areas still need simplification and work. CApitol3 14:14, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Architecture style

Is it accurate to call the White House Neoclassical? The official Neoclassical period began in the late 19th century. I've always thought that the White House was officially Georgian.

I have edited this page quite heavily and am not the source of the word "neoclassical" but your definition is not quite right. From this comment and one on the DC metro page it seems you believe neoclassicism begins with Beaux Arts. Janson's History of Art clearly describes eightteenth century buildings as neoclassical. The idea being that classicism first emerged in ancient Greece and Rome, and was succesively revived. Neoclassical is often used to describe eighteenth century architecture (U.S. Capitol, Monticello), painters (Jacques Louis David), and typography (Baskerville and Bodoni). I would describe the White House as late Georgian. The terms are not mutually exclusive. In the future please sign your comments with four tildes. CApitol3 12:20, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Canadian troops burning the White House?

That is news! I count nearly a half dozen attempts to add "Canadian troops" to the British troops having burned the White House section of the article. While a British subject living in lower Canada could possibly have been among the British troops there, they could not have been "Canadian troops" as the Canadian nation was not yet concieved. The possibility of the term Canadian troops could not have been used until after confederation in 1867. CApitol3 12:56, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was no move, per improper naming convention, and per WP:SNOW. Patstuart(talk)(contribs) 01:54, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

White House to The White House. The place is never referred to in speech without the "the". People don't call it, White House, but rather The White House, hence that should be the title. It also should be the title since there are many other white houses. Voortle 18:05, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Oppose - WP style is to avoid using leading "The" or "A" except where absolutely necessary. Better to leave as is. -- Beardo 21:19, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. And the statement that "the place is never referred to in speech without the 'the'" isn't entirely true. As an adjective, it doesn't carry an article (e.g., "White House sources," "White House press corps"). —  AjaxSmack  08:43, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose Violates the Wikipedia naming convention, which says that entry titles should only start with an article if that article would be capitalized in running text.
  • Oppose per WP:SNOWBALL per WP:NC#Avoid... -- Omicronpersei8 (talk) 16:54, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Bubba ditto 23:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

[edit] Floor plan

 It is requested that a diagram or diagrams be included in this article to improve its quality.
For more information, refer to discussion on this page and/or the listing at Wikipedia:Requested images.

A floor plan would help give a better overall picture of how the various rooms and spaces fit together. -- Beland 04:51, 30 November 2006 (UTC)


Hi, agree, I am working on a simplified floor plan with color coding for the rooms.CApitol3 16:38, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] greek interwiki-link

please add el:Λευκός Οίκος. thx --85.182.26.200 10:11, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures

Does the picture at the top of the page really need such a long caption beneath it? If the information is that important then it should have it's own entry elsewhere on the page. At the moment I think it is unpleasent to see and not something you would immediately want to read. Captions should be short. After looking down the page I see that plenty more are in the same state. I'm sure they do not need all the info currently there. Algebra man 20:05, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Architectural Influences

I have read somewhere (alas forgotten source) that the oval office was influenced by a room in the now Italian Ambassadorial residence in Lucan, Ireland. Does anybody know if this is true? --The Three Jays 23:58, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

The Oval Office's shape is inspired by the three oval rooms in the White House residence. Two of those three are original to the building, Influences from Irealnd abound and make sense as the architect, James Hoban, was Irish and had seen many of the building's cited. I've never heard of the influene you mention (Italian ambassador's residence). A direct influence can be traced to the levée room at the president's house in Philadelphia. Washington and Adams had lived there, Washington had alterations made to that room so that it was rounded on both ends. The building is now gone, and some question remains as to whether the room was a true oval (no straight sides) or a rectangular room that termintated in a semicircle at each end. Washington worked with Hoban on the floorplan, and having created an oval room in Philadelphia likely did the same in DC too. CApitol3 21:54, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

hello what's your name

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