Talk:Ron Paul presidential campaign, 2008/Archive 3

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A lot of Ron Paul's campaign publicity. Like that ron paul 08 image. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.167.4.240 (talk) 03:44, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Alleged white supremacist endorsement

You still haven't given any reason why these claims should not be listed. If it can be sourced it should be displayed and users can check the link for themselves if its worth believing, and furthermore, Ron Paul might answer for himself if these claims are true and if so how he justifies them. Goodleh 04:15, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Is it listed in Clinton and Obama's campaign articles that Castro supports them? If you can find a reliable source (newspaper, magazine) that has found this worthy enough of discussion, then you can come back and talk about whether this should be in the article. You're really reaching here.--Gloriamarie 22:05, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

No, it's not a "well know fact".

-G —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.158.83 (talk) 10:02, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

It is a well-known fact. Cruise on over to stormfront and look at all the Ron Paul donation buttons and pro-Ron Paul threads if you don't believe me (or google Ron Paul + stormfront or RP + David Duke or RP + Don Black). I generally like Ron Paul, but his endorsement by white supremacists is a matter of record and quite troubling (especially since I am not aware that Paul has refunded their donations). I do think this is worthy of mention in this article. --Nicky Scarfo (talk) 16:54, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

No formal endorsement has been made, so it is not a well known fact. Saying a candidate is the least worst is not support or an endorsement. It is however true Davidduke.com posts links to positive articles about Paul, but not other candidates, and many (but not all) stormfront posters think positively about Paul. You will note that they have given up on a main stream candidate with a white supremacist platform so. Paul appeals to them mostly because he is anti war (they see the Iraq war as a Jewish conspiracy), and they believe he would reduce what they see as government harassment (but others see as law enforcement).Geo8rge (talk) 06:56, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, publishing a newsletter that calls 95% of blacks criminal or at least semi-criminal is usually a good way to win the pointy hat vote. Burzmali (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 13:06, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
I don't think a lot of his supporters want it mentioned because it would make him look bad. Ron Paul is a poster boy for whites who look down on other races, but don't want people to think of them as "racist". Pity then that Guiliani probably has no chance now, and Obama is a crazy "video games turn kids into murderers" type advocacy loon. Where do I call to get info on defecting to Israel?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.162.204.6 (talk • contribs) 16:27, January 4, 2008

This has such charged statements with hatemongering and clearly biased towards anti-Paul that it does not belong in Wikipedia. And the FACT that it has been their since 23:38, 7 September 2007, is clearly an Offence. I sugges using good faith and removing such blatant POV. At a minimum a few "unknown users" comments should not be here...--Duchamps comb (talk) 18:01, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand, are you suggesting that I assume good faith about Ron Paul? Well, his newsletter is easy enough to find [1][2][www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1835179/posts]etc, etc. Burzmali (talk) 21:26, 27 December 2007 (UTC)


Ron Paul never had anything to do with the editorial group that published the newsletter (or newsletters) that supposedly carried the comments in question, and wasn’t even aware of them. Ron Paul immediately disavowed the newsletter article as soon as it came out. The staffer responsible was immediately fired. “They were never my words, but I had some moral responsibility for them . . . I actually really wanted to try to explain that it doesn’t come from me directly, but the campaign aides said that’s too confusing. ‘It appeared in your letter and your name was on that letter and therefore you have to live with it.’”

In Ron Paul’s article, “Government and Racism”, April 16, 2007 which states the following: “Bigotry at its essence is a sin of the heart, and we can’t change people’s hearts by passing more laws and regulations. In fact it is the federal government more than anything else that divides us along race, class, religion, and gender lines. Government, through taxes, restrictive regulations, corporate subsidies, racial set-asides, and welfare programs, plays far too large a role in determining who succeeds and who fails in our society. This government “benevolence” crowds out genuine goodwill between men by institutionalizing group thinking, thus making each group suspicious that others are receiving more of the government loot. This leads to resentment and hostility between us. The political left argues that stringent federal laws are needed to combat racism, even as they advocate incredibly divisive collectivist policies. Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans strictly as members of groups rather than individuals. Racists believe that all individuals who share superficial physical characteristics are alike: as collectivists, racists think only in terms or groups. By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality, the advocates of so-called “diversity” actually perpetuate racism. Their obsession with racial group identity is inherently racist. The true antidote to racism is liberty. Liberty means having a limited, constitutional government devoted to the protection of individual rights rather than group claims. Liberty means free-market capitalism, which rewards individual achievement and competence, not skin color, gender, or ethnicity.”

Anybody who claims that Ron Paul made the comments in question is deliberately mis-stating what occurred to make political points. It is a measure of (his opponents) desperation that they are dredging this up again. Anybody who reads all that he has written – and there’s lots of it, could see that right away.--Duchamps_comb —Preceding comment was added at 00:38, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Please remove the supposed "endorsement" by Don Black. As far as I know, there has been no such endorsement. The reference cited did not even contain actual information on Don Black's endorsement of Ron Paul, and even if it did, the link is now dead. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.250.64.204 (talk) 00:33, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Saying Paul had nothing to do with it and immediately fired people involved is a lie. Even Paul's own campaign doesn't try to sell that fabrication. In 1996, they claimed things were being taken out of context. Then in 2001, they changed their story to he hadn't read it. Yet they still admit some of the content in the news letters is his. Further, some of the outrageous claims are written in the first person where he mentions his being a physician, taking the oath of office for congress etc. Paul also made speeches at conventions supporting southern succession. Proof can be provided for everything I just said if you want to dispute it. Niteshift36 (talk) 00:15, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

At the very least this article should mention the 500 dollar donation made by Don Black, as well as the photograph of Ron Paul and Don Black together.PRËTËNTI0üZ (talk) 17:02, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree, and so does the AP. If you write a short graf about the donation, keep it to bare facts without drawing any conclusions, and cite sources of comparable quality to this AP cite, it should stick. Another note: you may want to add future comments to a new subsection at the bottom of this page; I for one am not wading through the stuff at the top. --- tqbf 17:24, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Citations

A large proportion of the sources in this article are not fully cited. Many of these citations include only a URL. I'm currently working on fixing these up. There are a lot of them, so definitely feel free to lend a hand. When adding more information to this article, please try your best to abide by WP:CITE#HOW when citing your sources. Thanks! Etphonehome 01:31, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I've started working on this as well the Cite News and Cite Web templtates are invaluable in an article of this size and I would ask that people start to use them as it not only makes it much easier to cite your source but also to read the sources at the bottom of the article. -- Argash  |  talk  |  contribs  10:18, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Here's a boilerplate that you can cut'n'paste: {{cite news |first= |last= |title= |url= |publisher= |date=2007-xx-xx |accessdate=2008-06-12}} -- Argash  |  talk  |  contribs  11:10, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Intro

Shouldn't the intro be a bit more substantial? I may work on this in the coming days, but what are some aspects of the campaign that should be listed? Gloriamarie 07:49, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Re: Campaign Advisors

I know that it isn't common to include a section on campaign staff/advisors, but I think that in the light of recent developments (ie: Carl Rove, Harriet Miers, Michael Brown etc.) there is a growing concern over a candidate's ability to choose staffmembers. Some of these advisors are potential cabinet members should the candidate be elected. I am proposing the inclusion of prominent staff/advisors (and a short bio) to all candidates' campaign entries in order to help voters better understand each candidates' ability to judge character. I believe that attention is inordinately focussed on individual candidates, when in fact, the major influence on any new administration will be in the advisors surrounding the new president. Your input would be greatly appreciated. ----Rawkcuf. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rawkcuf (talk • contribs) 04:10, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Krist Novoselic endorsement

Is this screenshot sufficient citation to label Krist Novoselic a Ron Paul supporter? --YixilTesiphon Say helloBe shallow 19:24, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

A donation is not necessarily the same as a full endorsement. For instance, Barry Manilow gave to Democrat candidates as well. However, it might be good enough to list as a supporter. The concern is about going overboard with exhaustive lists. Twalls 21:12, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Occupations not proper nouns

Dear AaronJBiterman (no user page), Yesterday you went through Ron Paul endorsements and capitalised all the occupations as if they were proper nouns. Why? Maybe if they were job titles, but even then you don't usually capitalise. Example: "Pastor, Author and Radio Host". I'll change them back if you don't justify. -- Korky Day 06:31, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Archived

Quick note to let everyone know that I've archived all topics that hadn't been updated since August to early September. -- Argash  |  talk  |  contribs  10:18, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Article in dire need of clean-up

The more I work on this article the more I realize just how much work it needs. There are so many citations that are just links it makes the head spin! If you have the time to help clean up citations please see the easy to use template above. Also maybe I'm crazy but it seems that the article doesn't flow properly. It might be because of it's length? How do people feel about splitting off two of the longer sections into separate articles? I would recommend splitting the debate section off to Ron Paul in the 2008 Republican debates or something like that, and the "Notable Appearances" section should probably be further fleshed out (i.e. more detail given to each event) and be split off to something like Ron Paul 2008 Campaign Stops. I'm tossing these ideas out there to because the article is getting very long and we still have 3 months till the primaries start so it's only going to get longer so I feel it might be time for some proactive steps to be taken. -- Argash  |  talk  |  contribs  16:06, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Any objection to me breaking out those sections? If none I'll make them in a few days. -- Argash  |  talk  |  contribs  04:22, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Sounds like a fine idea. The article is very long. I'll try to get some of those citations cleaned up when I have time. Etphonehome 21:51, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Since this article is already a spinoff of Ron Paul, my concern is just that it not get too hierarchical. If either of these spinoffs occurred, it would be important to summarize and link them in the main article also. It doesn't presently focus at all on debate performance or campaign stops. At the moment I don't think they need breaking off so much as more cleanup, selection, orderliness, logic, etc. John J. Bulten 23:21, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Bill Maher "endorsement"

I'm not sure this can really be called an endorsement [3]:

Wolf Blitzer: "Who do you like among the Republican candidates; who would be the best president among the Republicans?

Bill Maher: "Ron Paul"

That could arguably be considered an endorsement for the G.O.P. nomination, but I don't think it is for the general election. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ofus (talk • contribs) 17:02, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Endorsements

I've been working on improving the large number of citations that consist of only URLs. While doing this in the endorsements section, I've come across a couple of links that point to pages that do not specifically endorse Ron Paul at all. The sites say positive things about him, and I would not have any trouble believing that these people are in fact Ron Paul supporters, but the pages that are linked do not contain a specific message of personal support for Dr. Paul. In those cases, I have removed the citation in question and replaced it with a "citation needed" tag. When adding an endorsement, please make sure that the person has actually said "I will be voting for Ron Paul" or "I support Ron Paul" or something of that nature, and provide a link to evidence of said statement. Etphonehome 21:52, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Could they be flagged as "Favorable" or something like that? There is deffinatly a lot of people who have made favorable statements with out out-right endorsing Dr. Paul, such favorable statements do deserve to be noted but they should be noted properly.  Argash  |  talk  |  contribs  05:45, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't know. As you say, there are a lot of people who fall into this category, but the article is already quite long. It doesn't sound like a very bad idea to me, but I think we should probably just leave it at actual endorsements for now unless the other candidates' campaign articles start featuring a "favorable" section. Etphonehome 18:53, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Just a point I'd like to make. Jack Cafferty did not endorse Ron Paul, he only said he likes Ron Paul. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.226.25.215 (talk) 00:42, 8 December 2007 (UTC)




I propose changing the Jimmie Vaughn endorsement to this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH-tF8gwhfU The Ron Paul endorsements article currently only references a photo of a "Ron Paul" sticker on the side of his band equipment. The youtube.com video above is an interview where Mr. Vaughn discusses why he supports Dr. Paul. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rick brade (talk • contribs) 17:56, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

what this article needs

This article needs information on where he stands on issues. Right now it's too much just a list of his appearances, which isn't encyclopedic anyway and should be removed. 141.151.165.32 03:24, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

His stances on issues are in the political positions article.Granola Bars 15:27, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

November 5 fundraiser

There should be a separate section for today's fundraiser. Most likely, he has broken all records for fundraising in a single day. The 4 million dollar figure is actually low. Ron Paul's credit card company will only process 750 transactions per hour, and there is a backlog of transactions that is thousands long. We won't actually know until tomorrow just how much he raised. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.87.248.81 (talk) 06:06, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

GA Quickfail

Failed "good article" nomination

Upon its review on November 7, 2007, this good article nomination was quick-failed because it:

has been the subject of recent ongoing edit wars or is the subject of a future event

thus making it ineligible for good article consideration.

This article did not receive a thorough review, and may not meet other parts of the good article criteria. Future and current events cannot be Good Articles due to stability issues I encourage you to remedy this problem (and any others) and resubmit it for consideration. If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it to a Good article reassessment. Thank you for your work so far.— Cheers, CP 04:36, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

One other major problem with this article, and the Political positions article, is that the leads can't possibly be long enough to really be summarizing the length of the article, they'll have to be expanded heavily to be compliant. Homestarmy 01:50, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Blacklisted link causing revision problems

However, I can find no sign of that link to a myspace blog. What do I do? Korky Day (talk) 00:22, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

The same thing happened to me! I can't edit the endorsement section! Grundle2600 (talk) 16:53, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Ditto here when trying to update the information about the CNN/YouTube debate. Does anyone know which link it is that is causing this? 75.71.247.228 (talk) 18:43, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Found the link. It was to Donna D'Errico's Myspace blog where she endorses Ron Paul. I removed the link, but did not remove the name from the list of endorsements. 75.71.247.228 (talk) 19:04, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Thank you! Grundle2600 (talk) 04:02, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! For the longest time I was worried my computer had been hijacked. Buspar (talk) 07:53, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:RonPaulAmericanConservative.jpg

Image:RonPaulAmericanConservative.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 20:04, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


Criticism/Opposition?

How come thew other articles about presidential campaigns include a section or at least a few comments of critics. This one only has comments from outside observers, most of them jsut complementing him. Seems like his internet popularity translates to people who edit wikipedia, too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.249.185.205 (talk) 01:55, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Criticism/Opposition?

I see it too. This is the biggest white-washing in Wikipedia I've ever seen. "has become popular on a variety of social networking websites.", indeed. If I had a round-the-clock brigade which buried every negative story about me, I'd be popular, too. In fact, he isn't the least bit popular. He has a tiny handful of radicals using multiple accounts and block voting to prevent any other point of view from surfacing.Hosiah (talk) 08:38, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Is that you, Sean??? Terjen (talk) 02:08, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:RonPaulAmericanConservative.jpg

Image:RonPaulAmericanConservative.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 17:51, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia: WikiProject United States presidential elections

Editors of this article are invited to join Wikipedia: WikiProject United States presidential elections.--STX 04:04, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

List of Academia Supporting Paul

I just thought I would mention there is an easy list here, that encompasses a lot of Paul's supporters. [4]. I believe there a few notable ones not on the list either like Ken Schooland. I'm not familiar with the formatting here though, so I'm a little weary to edit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.137.230.39 (talk) 03:21, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Removal of Freemarketnews.com sourced information

As this news source is actively promoting Ron Paul, and lists him as one of their contributors, it can hardly be considered a reliable source for information concerning his campaign. Feel free to re-add the information if it can be sourced to a more neutral source. Burzmali (talk) 04:04, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Badly written article

This article is terrible. Numerous lists without much, if any, useful information make this a pain to read. Some serious work needs to be done to make this a readable article. It currently reads like rambling coments without much context. Arzel (talk) 19:13, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Better source needed

 December 1, 2007
     Los Angeles Times declares Paul a player in the presidential campaign.[104]

Any chance someone could find the actual LA Times article referred to in the sourced UPI article. Burzmali (talk) 19:44, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Adding criticism

I've added a small criticism section. The donation from Don Black of Stormfront has been getting a fair amount of press, so I thought it should be added. It's only fair that this article shows both sides of the argument; after all, as per WP:NPOV, Wikipedia should reflect both. It should also be noted that a number of other pages for candidates, such as those for Mick Huckabee, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton all have sections like this. — HelloAnnyong [ t · c ] 03:41, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I think we should try to avoid this type of section, which is continuing on a trend of dismantlement in these type of articles. I feel the best thing to do is to incorporate the text into the other sections.--STX 04:24, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure if you put this or someone else, but I think the mention of Ron Paul's supporters shouldn't be there like it is. There are a lot of criticisms of Ron Paul and his campaign, but I think mentioning supporters the way they're mentioned is just not legitimate.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 19:13, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
i do think the donation from Don Black should be covered as well as pauls response

but the line that says that ron paul supporters will attack tose who dont? im pretty sure every candidate has supporters who will attack those who dont support their choice come on people its politics it makes it sound like paul supporters are the only ones and is "Wonkette" really a credible source?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.98.94.8 (talk • contribs) 19:19, December 23, 2007

In this edit, Duchamps removed the entire criticism section on the grounds that "No other 2008 presidential candidate has one." I'm going to revert his removal, since there actually are other pages that have these sections. Mike Huckabee has one here; Hillary's is here; John Edwards' is here. Perhaps changing the section header to Opposition would be preferable, since that's what other articles use. — HelloAnnyong [ t · c ] 18:49, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

...Er, someone beat me to it. Well then. — HelloAnnyong [ t · c ] 18:50, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Endorsements and references

This is the second time in the past 24 hours that I've had to fix the references on here. When you use the same reference multiple times, don't just copy and paste the ref over and over; rather, give the first reference a unique name, and use that for all the rest. I'll give an example that I just fixed.

The user posted <ref>http://www.ronpaul2008.com/endorsements</ref> over and over. I went and changed the first reference to <ref name="rp08-endorse">http://www.ronpaul2008.com/endorsements</ref> and changed all the others to <ref name="rp08-endorse" />. Please, everyone, follow the Manual of Style from now on, particularly in the way of references. Thanks! — HelloAnnyong [ t · c ] 23:39, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Merge and Split

As Ron Paul Revolution was deleted, the merge matter was forced. I've successfully re-integrated the contents of Ron Paul Revolution (save for where it overlapped with Moneybomb) into this article. However, at 75 Kb, this article still needs to be split into maybe one more subarticle. I'm inclined to split off the whole bit about Paul's Internet support, since that can stand alone from the official campaign efforts. Buspar (talk) 03:02, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Another way to accomplish this size reduction would be to aggressively edit this article to remove unnecessary information. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 03:11, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Newsroom hierarchies idea of "aggressively edit" is DELETE FOREVER!
Buspar, you seem to be doing well. But their is so many forks I'm gitting a bit confused, their needs to be a way to outline/bullet point all the sections on Ron Paul and Ron Paul 2008, as well for the other canidates.--Duchamps_comb MFA 18:46, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Re deleting and merging Ron Paul Revolution. It's not a big enough deal for me to spend much time on, but I'm still sore about the whole "delete war" aspect of Wikipedia generally. Pathetic and disreputable. No proper notification of all those interested in the article. I never even saw any final vote tally. The votes should be counted automatically, not by hand, as I think they are now. Most importantly, if a consensus is not reached, it should take no less than a 4/5 vote to delete or merge. Thus, the onus should be on the destroyers, not the preservers, to make their case. Korky Day (talk) 00:04, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

PrisonPlanet reference

I recommend removing the second PrisonPlanet reference in the article which supports the statement: "While Sean Hannity of Fox News claims a small number of supporters intentionally inflate Paul's rankings and skew the statistics". PrisonPlanet is a conspiracy theory website that doesn't even come close to being a reliable source. Aside from being used as a source to report the actions of its owner (Alex Jones) and staff, they probably should not be used to support any information on Wikipedia. As my removal of the reference was reverted, I figured I'd see if anyone had a specific reason to keep it. Burzmali (talk) 14:45, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Very much agreed. Additionally, the source is being used to support a claim in a somewhat misleading way. Hannity is apparently talking about Fox News phone polls specifically, which is then contrasted against a statement about Technorati and Paul supporters' online activities more generally. You can't use sources in this way. And PrisonPlanet is simply the antithesis of WP:SOURCES ("Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy."). --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 15:13, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
I reverted that change, because the edit summary said "removed NPOV source" --- sources don't need to be neutral (else you could never cite an editorial). But I agree with your reasoning here. --- tqbf 16:42, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

If you agree with the reasoning just then just leave it out... alex jones is a loonie who believes in black helicopters secret amtrak detention centers retrofitted with gas chambers and so on and so on.. are we going to start citing rags like the weekly world news with headlines such as baby born with 10 ton head gets suprise visit from space aliens who plan on blowing up the planet.. and saves earth by headbutting leader to death... lets be reasonable here. find a real source for the quote cmon. -Tracer9999 (talk) 17:05, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree, and I apologize for reverting the change, which improved the article. --- tqbf 19:28, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Split

Its a shame that this article has now been split into three different articles. I wish the Ron Paul editors had a little better judgement to determine what's notable and what's not. --STX 20:26, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

What do you think a more appropriate structure would be? Are you suggesting this should be a single article? --- tqbf 20:48, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
I DO NOT want a split...--Duchamps_comb MFA 22:56, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Sort of a hard thing to do when so many people want to spin the page. But you're right, things could be considerably more succinct. — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 23:29, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
This is what I (STX) would do:
  • Remove the "Comments by observers" section entirely, we don't need to know about everytime Ron Paul is mentioned in the media.
  • Fix the endorsements section, most of these are not endorsements but donators or people who spoke favorable of Paul, that is not the same as an endorsement. Most of the endorsements are non-Notable as well.
  • List of Ron Paul campaign 2008 appearances and Ron Paul presidential campaign developments, 2008, these articles seem lazy to me. All they are is a list by date. Let me remind everybody that this is an encyclopedia. If you actually structure paragraphs with these lists and combine them, the size will go down significantly.
  • The Debates article seems reasonable well-written, reinstate this material once everything else is done since the size will be much smaller.

I'd like to do this but I know it will be mercilessly reverted. I'd hate to have to bring List of Ron Paul campaign 2008 appearances and Ron Paul presidential campaign developments, 2008 to AFD because of a lack of encyclopedic content.--STX 01:02, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree that both articles are lazy; more importantly, they suffer from WP:RECENTISM. I'd go so far as to say that listing every single appearance and development is fancruft. I'm not sure how far you're going to get, though; there are a great many people here who want there to be as many Ron Paul articles as possible. — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 01:18, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I would support all of these changes. These articles have become overflowing information dumps that are spawning now. We're going to start seeing articles on What Ron Paul Eats and List of Ron Paul's Moles before long if we're not careful. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 01:22, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with removing "Comments by observers." Not very important. But putting back in the other articles doesn't strike me as a good idea per WP:SIZE. Splitting off things like campaign developments and appearances is fine so long as they're sourced. Buspar (talk) 01:59, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see anything important in List of Ron Paul campaign 2008 appearances so it will be brought to AFD. Ron Paul editors need to figure out what is notable and not just keep creating more unencyclopedic articles. Everything about the campaign (especially campaign developments) needs to stay on this page. This page is about the campaign so this page should have the developments of the campaign. I'd like to just delete this page and just start over but I can't do that. For the record, Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaign, 2008 is 125,940 bytes with my edits this page (Ron Paul presidential campaign, 2008) is 110,969 bytes.--STX 02:08, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Then I think that one should be split into more than one article, as well. Can we at least agree that the Paul debate page should remain separate? It's written differently from the main Republican debate page, as it includes details specific to Paul not in the general article. It's also not a list and well sourced, so it can stand alone. Buspar (talk) 02:13, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Its apparent that Ron Paul editors want this page to be GA. Ron Paul will drop out soon, what can be done is to keep the article as I had it and maybe remove some repitions and unnecessary detail to Internet popularity, Grassroots campaign efforts, Polling, Campaign development, and Debates. Once he drops out we can look back and see everything that didn't make a difference and delete those aspects. In this state, with articles all over the place, terrible flow, unnecessary detail and repititions, it will never be GA.--STX 02:31, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
"Ron Paul will drop out soon" - Wikipedia is NOT a crystal ball, so it's not your place to decide notability on a prediction. Said prediction also flies in the face of secondary sources that say he will, at the least, be in the race well into February. Buspar (talk) 03:33, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Is there any consensus on a first step we can take? How about striking the "Comments from observers"? --- tqbf 03:16, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Comments from observers was already deleted (at least, STX removed it and I kept it that way on my last edit). Buspar (talk) 03:33, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

So I see that the other article has been merged into here already. Would anyone be opposed to a rewrite of the notable campaign section to prose form? Something like, "After raising $5 million in the third quarter of 2007, Ron Paul appeared on ABC's World News, CNN's The Situation Room, etc."? Seems much more encyclopedic and less suffering of recentism. I can do the rewrites if need be. — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 04:17, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

that would be fine.. but we don't need to cover every single program.. I mean how about something like appeared on cnn, foxnews etc.. rather then list every program fox news has.. every date etc..etc..etc.. just my two cents -Tracer9999 (talk) 05:36, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


Prose form would be good. I've already cleaned it up to remove the trivial ones with poor refs. I also already converted the "campaign developments" page to prose form. Buspar (talk) 05:08, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

The list of campaign appearences is up for deletion due to it just being a list. and several other reasons.. forcing it to this article is inappropriate in lite of the decision pending. The paragraph "Ron Paul has appeared in numerous television and radio appearences in which he discusses his views on current events as well as policy intention in the event he is elected president." more then sums up what needs to be said and eliminates the issues with posting a list that basically says the same thing.. this is not the ron paul campaign headquarters.. and there is a link to that here I imagine.. If you want to list some major debates hes been in.. by all means.. but every cable news show being listed is rediculous.. even the 30 second because you ask sessions on fox news.. I mean cmon.. its up for deletion because its a list not because the article is on its own.. -Tracer9999 (talk) 04:46, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

This may be crazy but is their a way to move the refrences to it's own page? At 201 currently it is 1/3 of the page...--Duchamps_comb MFA 04:59, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I've handed out 3RR warnings to Buspar and Tracer999. Remember that 3RR includes reverting any edits, whether or not it's the same content. I know we're all supposed to be bold, but that comes with being respectful of the rules around here. — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 05:27, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Missing the boat

While you guys argue about how to rearrange the excessive material on the Paul campaign, you're missing a major political story of the last two days — Paul may get left out of appearing in the upcoming Fox News debate in New Hampshire, even though he's raised more money than anyone and is outpolling Giuliani in Iowa and Thompson in N.H. Check Google News, there's plenty of stories on this, and almost every commentator and writer thinks it's a royal screwjob. Now this is something really worth including in this article, rather than arguing about where his mundane talk show appearances should be listed. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:41, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

The reason the Ron Paul editors haven't added this is because the "campaign developments" section is split from the main article. --STX 04:54, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
This has already been added to both the Republican Debate page and the debate page specific to Ron Paul by myself and others. Thanks for pointing it out, though. Buspar (talk) 05:07, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

you are allowed to edit wikipedia as well.. and provide sources -Tracer9999 (talk) 04:54, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I've been known to edit. Whatever. It's absurd that you can't fit everything about the campaign into one article. Be succinct! You'll better capture the flavor of what makes the Paul campaign different and gain more readers in the process. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:24, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

List of Ron Paul campaign 2008 appearances

There was talk above of taking this list, which was split into its own article and subsequently nominated for deletion, and reinserting it into this article in prose form. I think it might be inaccurate to say that this constitutes a consensus for merging the info back in, as I for one would like to see the finished product before supporting this merge. While I imagine a few might be worth mentioning, campaign appearances on the whole seem rather non-notable. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 05:52, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

It seems there is a misconception that the content should be merged. I believe it should be deleted. Its unencyclopedic and non-Notable, that is why I brought it to AFD. --STX 05:58, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Final version would take this and make it into prose. I can't add it back right now due to reverting Trace9999's earlier vandalism (which he's just been banned for), but I'll work on it later. Buspar (talk) 06:07, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
So we've reached an impasse. Should the page come to a delete, do we merge the information here, or let it die there? It seems to me that if the text wasn't notable enough for its own page, then it's not notable for a section of a page. I'd much rather take the text there and reform it into paragraphs and add it to this page. Thoughts? — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 06:12, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
My opinion: let the AfD run to "delete" or "merge" --- that's a semiformal consensus we can be guided by. When "delete" is called, we can distill this material to a single paragraph. --- tqbf 06:17, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
This is my inclination as well: at most a paragraph, not paragraphs. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 06:23, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

This content is really over the top. The same logic that defends it would also advocate that articles about athletes, musicians, and other serial newsmakers and celebrities would be littered with lists of television appearances. People ranging from Newt Gingrich to Al Franken tour the country giving talks at corporations and meetings, just like the candidate. Nobody is seriously disputing that Paul is running a real campaign for national office, and regular media appearances are assumed. Paul is a celebrity. The list of appearances needs to go. --- tqbf 06:15, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Completely agree. Nuke the list entirely and replace with a few sentences, at most. --Calton | Talk 15:03, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

So just to be clear, it looks to me that the consensus here so far is not to merge this information, neither in its current form nor as a section of any significant length. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 18:15, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

You're probably right, but a more reliable summary is:
Whatever the AfD on List of Ron Paul campaign 2008 appearances says is what we're going to do.

--- tqbf 18:49, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Ron Paul Revolution

This section was moved here yesterday from Ron Paul after some discussion on the talk page. I argued there for deleting it altogether on the grounds that it adds little to the article and is strange sounding, for instance, in that contains direct quotes regarding the 'nonviolence' of the grass roots movement.

Buspar dealt with much of this and I took a little more out, but Duchamps_comb reverted to his preferred version. [5] [6] Rather than go back and forth endlessly, could some other editors comment? --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 20:14, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I would have reverted Duchamps change, but the previous text, with the Re-love-ution stuff and the totally unsupportable claim that the MSM refers to the Paul campaign as a "revolution" gave me second thoughts. --- tqbf 20:17, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Time [7],New York Times [8] CBS, [9], MSNBC [10][11], The Washington Post [12], Los Angeles Times [13], The Chicagotribune [14], AOL News [15]. So I think I have established “the Ron Paul Revolution” is established in MSM nomenclature.--Duchamps_comb MFA 23:42, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
There a fair amount of slippage going on here between concepts of a revolution vs. the Revolution. Yes, some supporters refer to themselves as the Ron Paul Revolution and yes, some media make reference to the "Ron Paul revolution." In the latter case, however, they are using the phrase descriptively. Note the lower-case r in many of these stories. These sources do not establish that "Ron Paul Revolution" has entered the language as a standard phrase to describe Paul's grass roots support. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 23:49, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
There is only two in that list that use the "r" in lower case, The Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. True that the MSM does use snappy segways/transitions to talk about the supporters. So the "slippage" is in the delivery. However many/most are talking about the supporters and not just what they call them selves or the shirts/signs etc. Your starting to sound like Clinton asking what the definition of "is" is.--Duchamps_comb MFA 00:37, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
No. What you've established is that the media has repeatedly mentioned the campaign slogan. But nobody is disputing that the term is notable. By all means, mention in the article that the campaign calls itself the R.P.R. The problem, which I believe by now you understand, is that the MSM does not "refer to the candidacy as the Ron Paul Revolution" --- that wording alludes to the notion that the MSM endorses the campaign as "revolutionary". In fact, the media is largely referring to Paul's candidacy as a low water mark comparison by which to tell the story about the Giuliani implosion. --- tqbf 01:14, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

This is part of the Ron Paul interview with Glenn Beck.[16]

BECK: OK. Dr. Paul, I`m going to take a break. And in the break, I`m going to feed something down to your location that I`m not going to show on the air. My life has been threatened. I`ve had to wear a vest and have securities. I`ve had an S.W.A.T. team watch my family because of people who say they support you. I want to show you something that is out on the Internet about me and from people that say they support you. And I want to get your thoughts on this, and let`s set to rest some things when we come back. Shall we?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: We`re back with Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, who is joining us tonight for a full hour. I want to make this very clear. I believe that Ron Paul, in general, the group of supporters, some of whom I`ve met while I was on the road, are amazing people. Without any help from the official campaign, Ron Paul supporters have coined the term "The Ron Paul Revolution." They developed the concept for the Guy Fawkes Day money bomb back on November 5th which raised over $4 million. They hired a blimp to fly over New Hampshire to promote the Ron Paul campaign. Last Sunday, they held a tea party, where they broke John Kerry`s single day primary fundraising record by collecting another $6 million. But the downside is, when you have rabid supporters, some of them believe they can speak to their own agendas using the candidate`s name. And I just in the break showed Dr. Paul just a clip, a very small part of a five- minute video that is on the Internet where I am named a traitor and traitors should be executed. Can you -- would you like to address that at all, sir?

---So YES, Newsroom hierarchies I'd say that quote (and dsecussion) about the Revolution being violent are valid. You feel you can just do anything with that section You want. With out coming to a Consensus, so STOP... Untill others voice their thoughts.--Duchamps_comb MFA 21:22, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

You should be less liberal with your use of the word "stop" --- we don't manage other authors. I didn't see NH dispute the quote; like me, he probably just questions the wisdom of leading a section with a casual cite to Glen Beck. --- tqbf 21:25, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

So... how would everyone feel about deleting this section entirely, given the problems described above? --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 17:09, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I think I'd like to see an attempt at a rewrite before outright removing it. To achieve this, I would say that we should at least remove the big quote and the sentence about T-shirts. — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 17:22, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
While my first choice would be to delete, I could definitely live with this, as per my earlier attempts to edit the section. As tqbf points out though, we might want to also modify the statement about the mass media dubbing Paul's grassroots support the "Ron Paul Revolution" to (as I opined) something that better reflects the sources. I also agree that the "R-Love-ution" stuff is a campaign slogan/graphic design choice rather than a name that has much usage (try saying "R-love-ution" or whatever it is out loud; it's not really a word). --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 17:39, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
So.. where are we going with this? Any other users want to chime in? — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 14:40, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Strongly in favor of simply deleting the section, but we may be only 4 days from it being a moot point. --- tqbf 16:23, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

  • Strong Keep Just because two or three of you are on here 24-7 you think it is Consensus, well your all wrong. That section is needed.

And the section about Glenn Beck keeps being deleated. I think I've proven my point, by the CNN transcript, "wearing a veat" and "having a SWAT team watch his family" because he feels scared by Ron Paul supporters. I even have a screen shot that says,"Where am I wrong?-- The Ron Paul Revolution is meant as a catchy slogan, but I fear some of his fringe supporters are taking the word "Revolution" too literally. Do you agree or disagree?" 674=Yes, 8760=No. So I think I have proven my point as to the allegations of Paul supporter being "violent" in hius eyes. And to add more POV with "only 4 days from it being a moot point". I guess 10% in Iowa, and him soon to be second in NH, you boys will be eating humble pie soon.--Duchamps_comb MFA 21:05, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

  • Again: editors are not required to be NPOV (that's Orwellian). Content is. Paul is a fringe candidate. --- tqbf 22:19, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Notability of World of Warcraft march

On the first of January, there was a march in Paul's honour within the video game World of Warcraft. Almost 500 people made characters for the event, and it was very well-attended and controversial. A very isolated, grassroots event, to be sure. So much so, that the paragraph I wrote about it was deleted from this article due to "non-notability". However, I think the march deserves at least a mention.

Aside from creating a major buzz in the sizeable World of Warcraft community, the story has been picked up and written about by Digg, Wired, MSN, local news sources, and various gaming and political websites/blogs. A Google search of "ron paul warcraft" will provide plenty of hits about the march (which only happened yesterday). Here is just one such example.

What do other readers think about a mention of this event in this article's "Internet" section? 71.127.131.4 (talk) 23:28, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I deleted, so obviously I oppose it. As you say above, it was an isolated event, one whose notability in the overall context of the campaign is difficult for me to see. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 23:51, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Oppose. It's notable when a mainstream source writes about it, so the only argument is do we want more NNC in the article --- that seems to be exactly the problem this article has right now. --- tqbf 23:56, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

List of notable appearances

This content was a decisive delete at AfD. Duchamps Comb demoted the content from its own article to a pull-down list; this was a good-faith attempt to improve the article, but still goes against consensus. I removed the list. Goon Noot reverted the change.

Does someone else want to make the next move? I believe consensus is to simply remove the content, but won't revert a few sentences. The list is clearly inappropriate, especially in a sprawling article like this. --- tqbf 07:33, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I made a pull-down list that was a good-faith attempt to improve the article. As I believe that it was not the content that was in dispute, but merely the format, as it did not need it's own page(consensus was for no independent page, not content). I do not believe it is inappropriate, but a nice addition simplified.--Duchamps_comb MFA 15:18, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
The content was definitely the issue. Read the AfD, where many editors asked for outright deletion. This talk page supports that consensus. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 15:30, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
I cannot find the talk page for that AfD.--Duchamps_comb MFA 15:37, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Here you go. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 15:40, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Remove the list; it doesn't belong. And whoever put the references inside the folded section made a mistake, 'cause that didn't work at all. Should it get reverted, I believe it should go to AN/I. — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 15:46, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
The article is bloated enough as it is. There are no such things as "notable" campaign stops, with very rare exceptions. You will find no such list in the articles even on winning candidates (either Roosevelt, for example), unless something noteworthy happened, such as an assassination attempt or major political event. There are no such lists on the Huckabee, Romney, Edwards, Tancredo, Obama, Giuliani, etc. article, because they are blatantly inappropriate and non-encyclopedic. Nobody is going to care next month, much less next lustrum or next century, that Paul appeared in Bertram, Iowa on 12-5-07 or Gnat's Nostril, New Hampshire on 12-28-07. With all due respect to the Paulistas, this kind of thing is undue emphasis at its most extreme. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:44, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, Delete, due to the AfD descussion and the admin Orange Mike- "Close non-notable listcruft" -I guess it is concencencus to delete. (A shame tho as a few were fond of it).--Duchamps_comb MFA 15:59, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

  • NOTE To use Wp:snow in one day is bad educate just look at the fall out over this AfD, edit warring, and users being blocked due to 3RR. It would have been better to let the Afd run it’s course.--Duchamps_comb MFA 16:32, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Did the AfD not run its course? I agree, it's hard to imagine WP:SNOW applying to any RP content, given how contentious it is. Having said that, there was no way that article was going to survive AfD. If something else is snow closed, I'll take it to DRV myself (and you know my take on this subject). --- tqbf 18:30, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree.. letting it run its course would have been the best option.. rather then trying to take it out of the admins hands and move into an article without consensus especially when the article was up for being deleted for being listcruft.. just my opinion. glad AfD did its job. -Tracer9999 (talk) 03:57, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Slash and burn agriculture

I've just done a major slash-and-burn on the linkfarm, which was getting downright grotesque and blatantly violative of our guidelines on external links. Please don't start re-inserting your favorite podcast, fansite, or blog: Wikipedia is not a directory, nor a list of links. --Orange Mike | Talk 21:40, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Looks good. It's nice to have an admin taking a look at this page. — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 22:26, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Why? Admins are only editors with a few more buttons. Burzmali (talk) 23:47, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Yeah! I put on my blaze orange jeans (and shoes, socks, tightie-orangies, etc.) one leg at a time, just like you do! --Orange Mike | Talk 03:47, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Haha. I didn't mean anything by my statement. Withdrawn. — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 14:39, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

"Spin" on Iowa caucus results

"In the January 3, 2008 Iowa Republican caucus, Ron Paul took 10% of the vote[21], finishing in fifth place among eight contenders, trailing John McCain and Fred Thompson (each getting 13%) and ahead of Rudy Guiliani (who got 4%.)[22] Wolf Blitzer pointed out that Paul's double digit finish was "surprising" and indicated his support base was larger than what polls had been showing.[23]"

I checked here because I wanted to see how this got spun. I thought Wikipedia was supposed to be an encyclopedia, the statement could just as easily read...In the January 3, 2008 Iowa Republican caucus, 90% of voters did not vote for Ron Paul, finishing in the bottom half of eight contenders. Even if you multiplied his vote by three he would not have beaten Mike Huckabee.

Or maybe you could just state the facts, since this is an encyclopedia, and remove the spin.

Ron Paul finished fifth, with 10 percent of the vote, in the 2008 Iowa caucuses. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.104.231.235 (talk) 19:37, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I did the most recent edit on the first sentence quoted above. I don't think it is "spin" but factual, and I stand for the edit as a decent representation of the result. Terjen (talk) 20:17, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I assume the IP is grumbling more about the second sentence than the first. Something along the lines of, "Paul fans seem eager to quote from the mainstream media when it suits their purposes." --Orange Mike | Talk 20:39, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
The observations of a journalist like Wolf Blitzer, who's experienced in covering political stories, constitute informed commentary and analysis that's worth including in an encyclopedia. Similar to how you'd include the comments by an esteemed doctor in an article on a notable medical procedure. Note that criticism of Paul from others like Sean Hannity are also included, so it cuts both ways. The reason for the perceived imbalance is that the ones who disagree with Paul tend not to say anything about him, leaving those who are neutral (Blitzer) or supportive (Tucker Carlson). Buspar (talk) 08:16, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Two things, Buspar.
  1. 10 Wikipedia points for using the words "a journalist like Wolf Blitzer" in a sentence.
  2. Everything CNN, ABC, CBS, etc say does not create a license to add content to this article; if it did, the article would be vast and useless, a series of mashed up TV show transcripts. --- tqbf 18:08, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
We should probably get rid of the new spin that states that Giuliani campaigned. The current article makes it sound like he campaigned just like every other candidate, which is simply not true and a lie to boost Paul up. --75.68.115.72 (talk) 09:33, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
That wasn't spin. The source saying he campaigned in Iowa is reliable. Paul's campaign claims Giuliani made more visits to Iowa than Paul, but I haven't found a secondary source to back this up. But that Giuliani campaigned in Iowa and didn't "ignore" it as some have said is supported by several sources. Buspar (talk) 09:55, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

This is perfect! This article spends more words saying how great the candidate's result in Iowa was (138) than either the Mike Huckabee campaign article (36) or the Barack Obama campaign article (104) does ... and they both actually won the thing. The Ronpauliverse triumphs again. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:52, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Ridiculous. WP:BRD --- I've fixed the section. Naturally, Paulbots will revert it, but at least that's time taken away from create yet another 20 articles about the candidacy. Just a few more days to go! --- tqbf 18:03, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
You certainly know to wear your bias on your sleeves. I suggest you take a few days to chill out. Terjen (talk) 18:15, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Again, this misperception that only RP's supporters can edit RP content. --- tqbf 18:17, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Terjen didn't say only RP supporters can edit. He was saying your bias precluded you from editing neutrally and to the standards of Wikipedia. As such, you should chill out. Buspar (talk) 23:13, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
If you have a concern about a specific edit of mine, Wikipedia has many facilities for you to use to resolve that concern, up to and including WP:ANI (if you want to take up an admin's time with it). For my part, if there's a problem this article has --- I mean, look at it! --- it's that not enough people are putting their foot down and preventing WP from being used as a soapbox. --- tqbf 05:28, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Strategy?

What, exactly, is the Ron Paul electoral strategy? I think it should be mentioned on this page. Is he ignoring the small states, a la Giulani in favor a Super Tuesday blitz? It says he skipped Iowa, by why? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.68.228.208 (talk) 23:12, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Paul didn't "skip" Iowa. He dispatched over 200 student volunteers, after all. I don't think there's been an article on his strategy (if there is, it should be added). New Hampshire has definitely been a big focus for him, though. Buspar (talk) 08:18, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
You don't think there's an article on his strategy, but there should be one? You don't think Paul's strategy is basically one of the central topics of this article? --- tqbf 18:00, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, I meant newspaper article, not Wiki article. I was referring to the lack of good secondary sources on his strategy. Other candidates have it included on their page, so it should be here, as well, if it becomes documented. Buspar (talk) 23:15, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm curious about this too, as well as a related question, what is the Paul campaign spending all this money they've gotten on? TV ads, mailings, grassroots door-to-door operations, what? Wasted Time R (talk) 12:55, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I saw a couple news reports of South Carolina and California TV ads. I'm sure someone's written about his spending somewhere. Buspar (talk) 23:16, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Ron Paul presidential campaign developments, 2008

The campaign developments page is up for deletion. I'm not sure how many people had this on their watchlists, so you might take a look at the article as well. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 16:19, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

And now Buspar has added the contents of this article back to this article, despite an AfD that seems to be favoring delete. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 03:33, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
If the AfD results in a deletion, the text should be deleted - or failing that, heavily summarized and reduced. — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 03:47, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
No, the text should NOT be deleted, since campaign developments are a standard part of a candidate's article. Without it, the article wouldn't even feature any info on his official campaign, which is just silly. I've already culled the redundancy with the rest of the article. It just needs to be trimmed for bad sources. Buspar (talk) 04:30, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Sorry; I didn't see your most recent edits. I was opposed to having sections for each month, but having quarters as it does now is acceptable. — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 04:36, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Thank you. I am trying to improve the quality of the articles here. Since consensus is to include everything in one article, I'm trying to bring things into one and making sure it works. Can you please mention on the AfD that deleting the separate article doesn't mean deleting the section? There seems to be a big confusion on what an AfD really means. Buspar (talk) 04:39, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Respectfully, I think it's you that's missing the concept here. Editors supporting Paul have made the mistake of splitting the RP campaign article into a constellation of articles on the minutiae of the campaign. These articles are being AfD'd and (by and large, it appears) losing. Those AfD's that don't come out merge? They're a formal community consensus indicator to delete the content. There's no boundary being crossed between "sections and articles" --- AfD wouldn't mean anything if any AfD could be avoided by migrating the unacceptable content around the encyclopedia.
When AfD's close "delete", and not "merge", the content from those articles should be deleted. At the very least, they certainly should not be glommed into a sprawling oversized article already riddled with WP:OR, WP:WEIGHT, and WP:NPOV problems. But that's at the least. Better still, we should respect the consensus opinion and migrate that content to the Ron Paul wiki, wherever that may be. --- tqbf 05:26, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Incorrect. A delete vote only means the article as it exists separate is removed. Consolidating the content back to the main article is expected when a subarticle is removed. Also, in this particular case, the content being discussed is the main substance of this article, that is, the campaign developments, which is the centerpiece of all the current presidential candidate articles (I only moved them due to size - looking back, that was probably a mistake on my part). Your knowledge of AfD's is wrong and you are clearly ignorant of how these articles should be formatted. Please read more Wiki policies before editing further. You'd do well to follow my example and try to clean the article up rather than arguing that the whole thing is non-notable. Buspar (talk) 05:53, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
We disagree, but obviously I'll wait to see what others think before making wholesale changes to the article. --- tqbf 05:55, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I've not read this version carefully for WP:WEIGHT and NPOV, but at first glance it's an improvement. If we could do this with the debate text, I'd be a lot happier with the state of the article. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 17:20, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Ron Paul debates

Just so everyone is aware, Buspar has also placed the contents of Ron Paul presidential debates, 2008 back into this article and placed a redirect on the page. These are of course incredibly long and unnecessarily detailed. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 04:50, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, much redundancy - it's one of the oldest sections in the article. I haven't really cleaned it up yet. It does, however, contain info that's not in the main article, such as analysis and commentary related to just Paul. The key is separating what's in the main article and what's original to here. The main article should contain mainly the general stuff for most of the Republicans, while the section here should expand on how each debate affected Paul's campaign. For example, the Paul-Giuliani exchange was a relatively major development at the time that put Paul into the spotlight. I think there are enough secondary sources there to write it out in an encyclopedic tone and be neutral. It'll take some work, but to delete it completely would be overreacting. Buspar (talk) 05:02, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Hillary Clinton has 7 grafs total, covering every debate; a significant portion of those --- perhaps half --- are critical of Clinton. You now have a high water mark. Most of this content needs to go. --- tqbf 05:21, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
7 paragraphs here with other content moved to the main article would probably be sufficient. That's a good size guide. Buspar (talk) 05:55, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Ron Paul Revolution rewrite

The old section was getting kind of long, but I thought we could try to work out a new version of this here.

Current version

Ron Paul Revolution

Ron Paul Revolution is a term coined by supporters to describe the grassroots base of Ron Paul support in the 2008 Presidential Election. The term has also been adapted as a campaign slogan by the official campaign.[128] Many Paul supporters refer to themselves or the movement as the "Ron Paul Revolution," drawing parallels with the American Revolution.[129][130][131] The mainstream media uses the term to describe Ron Paul's official campaign.[132][133] When Ron Paul delivers speeches, the audience members will often be seen wearing T-shirts and waving signs that read "Ron Paul Revolution."[134] A New York Times blog commented on the campaign's graphic design, noting that,

“the "R/ EVOL /UTION thing is sophisticated, funny, cool — part constructivism, part graffiti, part Robert Indiana ’60s kitsch. (At the same time, it means what? Ron Paul puts the Love in Revolution? Rad, rad, rad.)"[135]

On December 18, 2007, Glenn Beck asked Ron Paul about the “Revolution” the congressman answered, “I believe in political change coming about in the mode of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, through nonviolence... In the same stance, our supporters have coined the words "love" in the revolution with "peace" and "hope."[136] (note, this was deleted, but will probably be replaced until we come to a consensus here)

NH's version

(no "Ron Paul Revolution" section heading, just this text directly under "Grassroots support")

Paul's candidacy draws a significant degree of support from grass roots movements, and supporters have worked independently of the official campaign or GOP to raise Paul's public profile as well as record breaking campaign donations. A number of media have described these efforts as the "Ron Paul revolution," a slogan the official campaign has adopted.

(following this will be all of the notable things the grass roots has done like the blimp, the "money bombs" and so on. T-shirts and slogans kind of pale in comparison to these achievements, don't you think?)

This is quick and dirty, please fix it if I got something wrong or add crucial details. I'll just add though that I am strongly opposed to the inclusion of irrelevant quotes, like the one from the NYT bog ("rad, rad, rad"--seriously, why are we quoting this?) and especially the Glenn Beck quote.

As a tip: While direct quotes are useful for avoiding POV, it's better to use direct quotes only when the speaker has said something better than you can rephrase it. As such this article has serious WP:WEIGHT issues. One way in which this article can be made more useful and manageable would be to trim these quotes. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 17:17, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the current version is too long (I had written it in a much more trim version). However, I think maybe a mention that the slogan is used on official apparel might be warranted (with source), so that the article proves it's being used officially and isn't just being tossed around in rhetoric. Buspar (talk) 23:22, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm disinclined to include mentions of apparel, but I could live with it, so how does this look?
Paul's candidacy draws a significant degree of support from grass roots movements, and supporters have worked independently of the official campaign or the GOP to raise Paul's public profile as well as record breaking campaign donations. A number of media have described these efforts as the "Ron Paul revolution," a phrase that frequently appears on placards and t-shirts at rallies as well as a slogan that the official campaign has adopted.
--Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 23:43, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Looks good. Short and to the point. Buspar (talk) 04:42, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I concur. Burzmali (talk) 18:36, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Thirded. (Is that even a word?) — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 18:38, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

the TNR newsletter article

I don't think that this has affected the campaign yet, but it might eventually warrant a mention here. Something to keep an eye on. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 20:37, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

It's already in the criticism section. Buspar (talk) 06:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

The Howard Stern endorsement should be removed

Howard Stern praised Ron Paul but he didn't officially endorse him. That should be removed. Or maybe it depends on the definition of an endorsement but usually when someone gets praise it doesn't mean they are officially endorsed. 61.213.76.87 (talk) 22:13, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

The article specifically says Stern endorsed him in the headline, though. Can you find evidence that the article is just exaggerating? If so, I'd agree it can be removed. Buspar (talk) 06:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
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