Talk:Harry S. Truman

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Harry S. Truman article.
Please sign and date your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~). Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Ask questions, get answers. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.	Be polite Assume good faith No personal attacks Be welcoming	Article policies No original research Neutral point of view Verifiability
Archives: 1, 2, 3

	Harry S. Truman is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do.
	This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on September 19, 2007.
Article milestones Date Process Result April 11, 2006 Good article nominee Listed August 12, 2006 Featured article candidate Not promoted April 12, 2007 Featured article candidate Not promoted August 30, 2007 Featured article candidate Promoted Current Status: Featured article

This article is within the scope of multiple WikiProjects. Click [show] for further details

WikiProject Missouri (Rated FA-Class) Missouri Portal This article is part of WikiProject Missouri, a WikiProject related to the U.S. state of Missouri. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. FA This article has been rated as FA-Class on the quality scale. High This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale. WikiProject Biography     (Rated FA-Class) This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page. Biography Portal FA This article has been rated as FA-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ] This article is supported by the Politics and government work group. Military history WikiProject     (Rated FA-Class) This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see lists of open tasks and regional and topical task forces. To use this banner, please see the full instructions. FA This article has been rated as FA-Class on the quality scale. Additional information and associated task forces: Associated task forces (nations and regions): United States military history task force Associated task forces (periods and conflicts): World War II task force WikiProject U.S. Presidents (Rated FA-Class) This article is part of WikiProject U.S. Presidents, a project to improve the quality of the biographies of U.S. Presidents and related articles to meet the criteria for Featured Article status. You are invited to view our progress. FA This article has been rated as FA-Class on the assessment scale. As such, it represents some of the best work we have accomplished. Cold War WikiProject      (Rated FA-Class) Harry S. Truman is part of the Cold War WikiProject, an effort to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to the Cold War on the Wikipedia. This includes but is not limited to the people, places, things, and events, and anything else associated with the Cold War. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. FA This article has been rated as FA-Class on the quality scale. ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale. Version 1.0 Editorial Team     (Rated FA-Class) This article has been reviewed by the Version 1.0 Editorial Team. Additional information: FA This article has been rated as FA-Class on the assessment scale. Feel free to make short comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article. ??? This article has not yet received an importance rating on the assessment scale. This article is included in the 2006 Wikipedia CD Selection, or is a candidate for inclusion in the next version. Please maintain high quality standards and, if possible, stick to GFDL-compatible images.

Harry S. Truman is the proper title of this article, including the period after the middle name of "S." This has been thoroughly discussed and the inclusion of the period is the consensus of many editors. Please see the section in the article on Truman's middle initial for details. See the archived discussion pages for past discussions.

Contents 1 Middle name Abbreviation 2 Bias 3 Thank you anonymous editor 4 Sequence 5 Material added by 160.150.65.51 (Fort Jackson Department of Information Management) 6 Needs elaboration or deletion 7 Suggested change 8 Reference styles

[edit] Middle name Abbreviation

"S" is Harry S Truman's complete middle name. Thus a period in the article title is unnecessary, inefficient, and inaccurate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.27.211.52 (talk) 22:38, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I knew Harry Truman personally. Harry had NO middle name, only an initial. Not only is the period (which indicates an abbreviation) "unnecessary, inefficient, and inaccurate", it's inconsistent with Harry's presidential page at http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ht33.html . Do you think YOU know more than the people at the White House? The period should NOT be there. Just because the rest of the world is wrong doesn't mean Wikipedia has to be - this is the main reason I HATE to use Wiki as a reference for ANYthing. /s/ C. Brooke Gruenberg (brookela) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brookela (talk • contribs) 22:05, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Citing the "people at the White House" as a source of the definitive truth is laughable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.41.26.180 (talk) 01:20, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I personally think I know more than people at the White House. WikiDon (talk)

--— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 00:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Why do we keep having this discussion? The man signed his own name with a period. Seems conclusive to me. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:14, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Anyone who thinks that the period doesn't belong should start by convincing the The Harry S. Truman Library and Museum to rename themselves. Rickterp (talk) 03:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Dissenters, look at it this way: if his middle name is "S", then his middle initial is "S." So it's not incorrect to say Harry S. Truman. —Werson (talk) 01:36, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I suppose. But this is only applicable when it is used as an initial. The title of a wikipedia page uses an initial like this, so I say keep the period there. But the name listed at the beginning of the article in bold uses the whole name (e.g. George Walker Bush, not George W. Bush). Used in that sense, it should not have the period. So, I say change that one. Sampackgregory (talk) 19:11, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Admittedly, however, I have a problem with using additional symbols to reduce meaning in general. This seems to be a major stylistic violation in the vein of White and Strunk Rule #19. I mean, why, exactly, should one use a period? What does this clear up? Perhaps in a system of some sort where every person is listed with a middle initial it would be consistent and appropriate to use a symbol, but isn't this the opposite of what is going on here?Sampackgregory (talk) 19:12, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The article currently uses "S." in Truman's name except for the names of a few institutions that use "S". Truman's middle initial is discussed within the article: Truman's middle initial. The issue has been extensively discussed; those discussions are available in the archives.

An overriding principle is that style and formatting should be applied consistently throughout an article, unless there is a good reason to do otherwise (except in direct quotations, where the original text is generally preserved).
— Wikipedia:Manual of Style

The use of "S." versus "S" is simply a matter of style, as both ultimately have the same meaning. As such, either usage would be correct, but one style must be used in a consistent manner. Changing the usage in one section of the article without changing all usages, including the article title, creates an unacceptable inconsistency.

When either of two styles is acceptable, it is inappropriate for an editor to change an article from one style to another unless there is a substantial reason to do so. Edit warring over optional styles is unacceptable. If an article has been stable in a given style, it should not be converted without a reason that goes beyond mere choice of style.
— Wikipedia:Manual of Style

The article has been titled "Harry S. Truman" since it was created on August 23, 2001, used this title when it was promoted as a featured article on August 30, 2007 and was stable for the intervening six years. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 19:31, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bias

Specifically under the Soviet espionage and McCarthyism section It mentions the "fall of China" Techinically the rise of the PRC, biased? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.183.69.18 (talk) 01:14, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you anonymous editor

The most recent change to the article was by an unregistered user at address 149.171.241.136. The edit summary was:

Replacing the photograph of someone other than Truman at the same meeting in Sedalia, with one that really is Truman.

For all the work that people (including me) have put in on this article, all the vandalism policing, everything, it seems that none of the regular edtiors of this article noticed that the picture, which was captioned "Senator Truman seeks re-election during this July 1940 speech", did not in fact depict Truman at all, but someone else entirely.

Whoops. We had our butts saved by an anonymous editor.

Most of the anonymous editing that goes on in this article is vandalism. We spend a lot of time fixing that. It's easy to forget sometimes that anonymous editors do a lot of valuable work on Wikipedia.

I'm going to try to remember this time.

-- Dominus (talk) 04:33, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sequence

Hello. Thanks for providing a nice article. I may be overlooking something, but it seems as if the article, in the right frame area, shows Truman being the 34th President before he was the 33rd President. I'll leave the edit decision to someone who is regularly involved. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.229.147.208 (talk) 23:41, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

34th vice president then 33rd president. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 00:31, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Material added by 160.150.65.51 (Fort Jackson Department of Information Management)

In the 1990's, with the declassification of the "Venona Project" it was discovered that there had, in fact, been hundreds of soviet agents working within our government, who were actively engaged in passing information to thier Soviet handlers and influencuing national policy. It is also worth noting that during the McCarthy inqueries President Truman saw fit to have all security and personel files of those accused by McCarthy sequestered in the White House itself and refused to release them to Congress. This fact sheds some light on the historic view that Sen. McCarthy made spurious accusations, with little real substance, when the fact was the Truman administration thwarted every attempt by Senate to view these documents. The various congressional commisssions of the era, that were launched in response to Sen. McCarthy's allegations, were all chaired by members of Truman's own party and who's "investigation" consisted the accused coming before the commission, denying all allegations, and being cleared by Tydings. Throughout this era very few communists were exposed, and this "fact" would be repeated by rote for the next 50 years, but stands in stark contrast to the revelations of the Venona Project decrypts. There is enormous anecdotal evidence to support the claim that the progressives of the era were enamered with the notions of communism and socialism, Sen. McCarthy challenged that affection, as did Nixon; both were subsequently destroyed politically (although decades apart) for the

There are a number of issues with this: at least eight spelling errors, grammatical errors and scare quotes, but the most egregious is the lack of sources. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 20:28, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

All of that, not to mention the reference to "our country"; and yet at bottom the claim is true, and a suitably pared-down and grammatically correct version does belong in the article, with a source attached. -- Zsero (talk) 21:26, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

With solid attribution to a good source, yes. Also, a link to Venona wouldn't be amiss. Trekphiler (talk) 19:20, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Needs elaboration or deletion

Quote from article: "At the Potsdam Conference, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was aware of the U.S. government's possession of the atomic bomb" -- Well no shit I think the whole world was aware at that point... Not sure what the original contributer thought when he added this. We need to either add to this or just get rid of it.--129.1.34.101 (talk) 18:19, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Hardly, Postdam Conf was BEFORE the A-bombs were dropped, so the whole world did NOT know about them. — Rlevse • Talk • 18:29, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

The Potsdam Conference was from 17 July 1945 to 2 August 1945; from Potsdam Conference: "It was here where Truman first alluded to Stalin that the Americans had developed the atomic bomb and may use it against Japan, which they later did on August 6th and August 9th." --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 18:36, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Suggested change

Hello. I'm not sure if I'm following the proper protocol, but I would like to suggest that the last sentence of the third paragraph under "Personal Life" be changed from:

"He was a page at the 1900 Democratic National Convention at Convention Hall in Kansas City."

to something like:

"He served as a page at the 1900 Democratic National Convention at Convention Hall in Kansas City."

to suggest more strongly what "page" means in this context.

128.174.130.67 (talk) 20:41, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reference styles

Somehow, it had escaped me that the article uses both author-date referencing (Harvard) and footnotes with citation templates. Per WP:CITE, there should be one consistent method. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 16:37, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Thought: Should we look at the other presidential bio's and try to make them all the same? ~ WikiDon (talk) 22:15, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

PS: I know when I ref a book, lately I have been doing the "author (year). title. city: house. ISBN", but when I do a periodical I like the "author-[w/link if ap|title]-pub-date" format. So, for me it depends on the type of pub. ~ WikiDon (talk) 22:22, 27 May 2008 (UTC)