Talk:George W. Bush

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Alhutch (talk | contribs) at 01:10, 6 February 2006 (Reverted edits by 24.10.241.162 (talk) to last version by Tony Sidaway). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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update the economic data?

The last sentence of the "Economy" section contains this statement:

"Currently under Bush, the economy grew at a 4.3 percent pace in the third quarter of 2005, the best showing in more than a year."


If Wikipedia wants to maintain up-to-date quarterly economic data, then this sentence should be changed to:

"Currently under Bush, the economy grew at a 1.1 percent pace in the fourth quarter of 2005, the worst showing in more than three years."

Reference: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060127/bs_nm/economy_gdp_dc

Personally, I think that selectively choosing current data could lead to POV problems. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.163.99.9 (talk • contribs) .

  • Then why do you want to report selectivlt distorted economic data? Could it be that you are looking for any pathetic excuse to claim that we have a "bad" economy, and that a little socialism will make it all better? Sorry pal, Clinton's "good" economy is what got us into a recession, and Bush's leadership is what got us back on track. If you try an insert any of that blatent leftist propaganda into the article, I'll see that you're permabanned so fast that your head spins--64.12.117.13 15:57, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But if you're going to write 'currently under Bush', it should be the most recent economic data, as noted by 67.163.99.9. Choosing the most recent positive data, rather than the most recent data, shows bias, as would choosing the most recent negative data if there was more recent positive data. It's not about attacking anyone, although if you want to get into Hurricane Katrina, it could be pointed out that it would have had far less of a negative impact if people had invested in protections that many countries in similar situations invest in. (ie, Holland) And how's massive CO2 emmisions for a 'magic weather stick'? But that's neither here nor there, and has no bearing on this decision. 11:20, 1 February 2006 (UTC) (Skittle)

I have updated the line to include the most recent data first, but provide the prior quarter's data as well. I do not see how any can suggest this is not the best solution. It is ridiculous to suggest that we can only quote from one quarter, especially when the prior two showed such different results. Most likely, we should not even be using such variable quarter data, but year stats, but for now, using two quarters is a fix.--Plaidfury 15:59, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

GWB

um, why is there a..

"GWB" redirects here. For other uses, see GWB (disambiguation).

..tag on this article? GWB is a disambiguation page, not a redirect--205.188.116.138 16:27, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Because if you were trying, for example, to get to the article on the George Washington Bridge, and hence typed in GWB into the search bar, you'd be taken here, but you wanted to get there. So we link to the disambig page, which is where he was trying to get to. Perhaps GWB shouldn't automatically redirect here after all, but that's another argument. Since it does redirect here, and there are other usages of that TLA (three letter acronym), we need to link to the disambig. Fieari 17:17, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
but that's another argument - see Talk:GWB#Should GWB go to a disambiguation page, or should it go directly to George W. Bush?. Thanks/wangi 17:29, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Could an admin fix this up please following that discussion - move GWB (disambiguation) to GWB and then remove the redirect at the top of this article. Thanks/wangi 15:08, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Shanes 15:29, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that/wangi 15:42, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lock out

I have problems with this article (George Bush) being considered a good article. Are the other presidents just as good? or is this a bias in support of George W. Bush? MagnumSerpentine 05:05 4 February 2006 (US-CST)

I'm all for freedom of speech...but why not lock this page out to anyone but admins? It seems that since even registered users are vandalizing the bio, its the next logical step. Thoughts? Squiggyfm 18:57, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's not about freedom of speech, see WP:NOT; it is about building a comprehensive encyclopedia. Permaprotecting this page would be equivalent to labeling it 1.0, which is stupid especially given that he's still in office for another 3 years. —WAvegetarian•CONTRIBUTIONSTALK• EMAIL•19:19, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I know the site isn't "about freedom of speech" and the intent of wikipedia. I was simply stating I'm a fan of it, and how that would be the biggest counter to locking the page down. However, look at the revisions made to the page...its easily the most vandalized site in all the wikiverse. Think of all the man-hours wasted in reverting.

I'm also not suggesting that all revisions be approved by the Bush Administration, if Bush sucks...give proof and stick in the the article...but renaming his middle name Doofus just serves no purpose. Squiggyfm 20:31, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A short lookback on vandals...
13:31, January 31, 2006 Drini m (Reverted edits by Alfonzo227 (talk) to last version by Malcolm Farmer)
13:30, January 31, 2006 Malcolm Farmer m (Reverted edits by Alfonzo227 (talk) to last version by Skittle)
11:07, January 31, 2006 Skittle (remove vandalism by 123789)
20:19, January 30, 2006 Francs2000 m (Reverted edits by Italiamerican (talk) to last version by Chtirrell)
23:41, January 29, 2006 Vsmith m (Reverted edits by O-Z0N3 (talk) to last version by Lumiere)
16:00, January 29, 2006 (hist) (diff) George W. Bush (Reverted edits by Sambrookson (talk) to last version by Irongaard)
16:00, January 29, 2006 (hist) (diff) George W. Bush (Reverted edits by Sambrookson (talk) to last version by Irongaard)
07:55, January 28, 2006 Latinus m (Reverted edits by DoeGully (talk) to last version by Lord Voldemort) (his winner just deleted the entire page)

Thats only since Sunday, the countersite for this vandalism would be Kerry...
16:45, January 23, 2006 Woohookitty m (Reverted edits by James.Kice (talk) to last version by Lbmixpro)
03:55, January 22, 2006 Johnleemk m (Reverted edits by 67.15.76.110 (talk) to last version by Lbmixpro)
03:46, January 22, 2006 Wayward m (Reverted edits by 67.15.76.110 (talk) to last version by Jpgordon)
16:44, January 21, 2006 Jpgordon m (Reverted edits by 69.254.70.130 (talk) to last version by Blue387)
00:41, January 16, 2006 Mr. Tibbs (Revert to last version by Mr. Tibbs to restore all the info 70.84.56.165 / 66.98.130.204 removed.)

Or about half the vandalism.

Just because you don't agree with Bush, doesn't mean that his page should be vandalized. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Squiggyfm (talk • contribs)

No. Just because an article is one of the most vandalised pages on Wikipedia does not mean that it should be protected; how would progress be made on the article? Isn't this a Wiki? Administratorship is not supposed to be a greater editing priviledge, and protecting it would turn it into that. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:04, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Moreover, Bush is President, Kerry is not... I would expect the sitting U.S. President's page to be more vandalized than a U.S. presidential candidate. Why does that surprise? -- User:RyanFreisling @ 23:06, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Not to mention the fact that not every vandalous edit is negative. A vandalous edit could just as likely say "George W. Bush smells good" as "George W. Bush smells like poop." · Katefan0(scribble)/poll 23:15, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cindy Sheehan arrest

The coward Shrub has his thugs arrest Cindy Sheehan on January 31 and stifles free speech... should this be added? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pwner2 (talk • contribs) 23:04, January 31, 2006.

What does her arrest have to do with Bush? She was arrested for protesting inside the Capitol, by the Capitol Police. I doubt Bush even knew about her presence or her arrest. Rhobite 04:10, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
She was removed from the senate building because she was wearing a T-shirt, which is something not allowed in the senate dress code. A Republican senator's wife was removed as well as Cindy because of wearing a T-shirt. This has noting to do with Bush. Ciperl 17:54, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I think it was reported that she was removed because of what was written on her t-shirt. I believe she was asked to cover it up and she refused, prompting her removal. --LV (Dark Mark) 17:59, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As I understand it, she was protesting outside a free speech zone, which is currently illegal. -- Ec5618 18:12, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, technically, I think she was protesting inside a "no campaigning zone". I think it's the same reason lobbyists are not allowed to lobby inside the Capitol Building. --LV (Dark Mark) 18:21, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Its what she wanted. Its drumming up more press for Ms. Sheehan's cause. Also, I'd have to think that having her in attendance was mainly a plub stunt for the congresswoman from CA who invited her. EVERYONE ON THE PLANET knows what Bush is going to say, he won't deviate from his script, no politician ever will, ergo, there isn't any point for her to make a scene other than to generate press. IMHO Squiggyfm 18:51, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here's an interesting tidbit: the Cindy Sheehan article at wikipedia is bigger than the George W. Bush article :-). No doubt this is due to all of you who have done such a great job creating daughter articles for this article. NoSeptember talk 19:37, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that, and the fact that people insist on including every minor detail of Sheehan's life on her article page. But that's a discussion for that article's talk page. :-) --LV (Dark Mark) 19:42, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's also very interesting, that Sheehan was NOT the only one ejected from the House gallery for a 'protest' t-shirt. The wife of Republican Congressman C. W. Bill Young was ejected for wearing a t-shirt that read "Support the Troops Defending Our Freedom," [1] -- User:RyanFreisling @ 20:14, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, she has every right to her views and the right to voice those views as loudly as she pleases...but I guess there are places where that right is infringed upon, I suppose for "good" reasons. Regardless, it really has little to do with Bush as he didn't say, get her outta here, or have anything to do with setting up the laws against wearing T shirts in the Capitol, etc. IMHO, if she wants to be seen as "professional", she should adopt a less "in your face style" of protest, because surely she knew (or I hope the person who invited her had the decency to remind her) that there is indeed a dress code and a code of conduct in such circumstances. I can't see why she simply wasn't made to leave...why arrest her...oh well, that comment also belongs elsewhere.--MONGO 20:21, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sheehan, however, was the only one arrested. I think the Capitol Police may have just bought themselves a false arrest lawsuit, and a bunch of free publicity for Sheehan, see e.g. Bynum v Capitol Police (pdf). Interestingly, p 2 of that cites Capitol Police regs that demonstrating "does not include merely wearing Tee shirts ...." Anyway, NO this doesn't belong in the Bush article; he has no direct control at all over Capitol Police.
btw, MONGO, you should look at what Sheehan has to say about this[2]. She at least claims that she had no "in your face" intent. Derex 20:25, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
<joke>Well when your only clean shirts say things like that...</joke> --LV (Dark Mark) 20:43, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I mean some of her general protesting efforts...besides, what did her T-Shirt say...wasn't it something that was anti-war or something...maybe that violates some "law" in the Capitol under the circumstances of a State of the Union address...not familiar with the laws pertaining to this.--MONGO 20:45, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
See Talk:Cindy Sheehan for more discussion. Let's discuss no more here, as it does not pertain to this article. Thanks. --LV (Dark Mark) 20:53, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Razzie Award

Why is Bush on the category list for Razzie Awards (which are given to the worst actors in bad movies?) This seems childish, but I don't know it could be for something legitimate. WikiSailor 04:38, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, he also won a top screen villain award for his role in that film from the British periodical Total Film Magazine. However, not worth adding to the entry IMO Schizombie 05:24, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Everyone's a critic. :) -- User:RyanFreisling @ 05:27, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Featured article candidate?

I read: "George W. Bush has been listed as a good article; it adheres to certain quality standards, and may become a featured article."

Hmm... If this articles does become featured and linked from the front page, I think that on that say it may be wise to make it editable by admins only... or at least, semi-protected (I notice that the sprotect comes and goes) If not, the vandalism would go through the roof. Admins: please make this a consideration if it does become featured... thanks. EuroSong 19:38, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

articles linked from the main page are not supposed to be protected. That's what in says in WP:PP.--Alhutch 19:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unprotection

Tony Sidaway: Please stop unilaterally unprotecting this article, and thus rendering semi-protection entirely pointless. Your actions would only make sense if anon vandals were either a) consipiring together, or b) were limited to just one person. Neither is the case. Why did you pick one of the least active times on one of the least active days of the week to unprotect the article? — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-3 11:21

There is nothing unilateral about unprotecting the page, so I have re-unprotected it. Please allow open edit for awhile to gauge the quality of edits. We are actually entering a period of vandalism increase as I have seen everytime at about this time, so please allow this article to be unprotected. Semi policy clearly delineates that it is to be used only during the most active of vandalism cycles. All article experience some level of vandalism and this one just happens to be one of the prime targets.--MONGO 11:56, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Brian0918, to deal with your last question first:
* Unprotected for over 8 hours, about 1200 to 2000 UTC, Saturday 7 Jan
* Unprotected for over 4 hours, about 2100 to 0100 UTC, Wednesday 11 Jan
* Unprotected for over 10 hours, about 1900 to 0530 UTC, Sunday 15 Jan
* Unprotected for over 11 hours, about 0330 to 1509 UTC, Friday 20 Jan
* Unprotected for over 11 hours, about 0530 to 1730 URC, Thursday 26 Jan
And the latest protection started again on a Friday but at around 1100.
As you can see I've unprotected at times of heavy usage and I've also unprotected at times of low usage. I'm doing so about once or more per week for varying durations. I've also been pretty random in my choice of day of week.
I do appreciate that casual vandalism may interfere slightly with the process of editing--you have to keep checking the history and sometimes a good edit may slip in before vandalism is reverted. However, although semi-protection of this article is a great success, it does have side-effects. Here for instance you'll see that, while vandalism reverts are right down, total non-revert edits are down also, probably more than could be accounted for by vandalism.
On a popular, much-watched article like this, vandalism reverts are normally one-for-one with instances vandalism, so if, say, 20% of all edits over a period are vandalism reverts then double that, about 40%, will be vandalism-related, and the rest will be non-vandalism edits.
In the past three weeks, total edits have been around 150 on average. Around 15% of those are vandalism reverts, so I estimate that roughly 30% of all edits are vandalism-related. This leaves 70%, or around 100 non-vandalism-related edits, per week.
In the first three weeks of December, total edits were around 720 per week. Vandalism reverts were around 32%, so I estimate that total vandalism-related edits were a whopping great 64%. This leaves only 38% as non-vandalism-related. But 38% of 720 is 270, rather more than 100!
Now these are very rough seat-of-pants, figures, and I would certainly welcome any refinement, corrections and so on. I absolutely do not intend to take these figures as authoritative in any way, but they're the only figures that I have that measure collateral damage due to semi-protection, so they're a start. And I hope they illustrate why I think it's important to keep in mind the fact that semi-protection is only a temporary measure to deal with vandalism. If semi-protection hampers normal editing more than vandalism did, then perhaps semi-protection is not right for this article.
In any case, we should not treat semi-protection as a permanent state. As with any other protection, we should regularly remove it to test the level of casual vandalism that is the reason for protection in the first place. --Tony Sidaway 12:38, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]


I don't think you (or MONGO, and others) understand the vandalism to this article. We've had this discussion several times before, and the people who disagree with you have essentially been ignored. Semi-protection does not and will not reduce the vandalism to this article while the article is unprotected. That is simply impossible. Vandalisms to this article are almost all newbie tests, and the small minority are by trolls with too much time on their hands. In neither case is semi-protecting going to reduce vandalism in the long-run. There will always be newbies, and they will always come to this article at all hours of the day to try vandalizing it. Trolls know the system and will wait for the opportunity to fill the article's history with libellous edits. The most you can hope for is that the small minority of trolls will leave, but you won't be able to gauge that change with such limited data.

Semi-protection is only useful for stopping vandalism, and that can only occur while the article is semi-protected. I am 100% sure that there is no point in unprotecting the article, at least with the claim that you are trying to reduce long-term vandalism to the article. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-3 18:57

But ignoring an official WP policy is not the way to do it either, don't you think? --LV (Dark Mark) 19:04, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
WP:IAR exists for many reasons. This is one of them. It's the ultimate sanity check, and opening this page to anonymous edits is insane. --Golbez 19:08, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So we can go around violating NPOV or the blocking policy as we see fit? IAR does not apply to everything. --LV (Dark Mark) 19:11, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
slippery slope or possibly straw man fallacy, we are not discussing NPOV or blocking policy, we are discussing the semiprotection of the most vandalized article on Wikipedia. --Golbez 19:14, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Right, and we're talking about circumventing community consensus as we see fit. The policy was adopted with certain guarantees that are now being revoked. --LV (Dark Mark) 19:16, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This article is the exception to that rule. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-3 19:34
Oh, see that's funny, because when SPP was being passed, that exact point was raised, and we were told in very conrete language that it wouldn't be the exception. I guess they all lied, right? I just don't get it. This was discussed plenty before SPP was passed, but now none of that discussion matters? --LV (Dark Mark) 20:23, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If their rationale was wrong, then of course not. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-3 20:40

I agree with Brian0918 that we should not be bound slavishly to Wikipedia policy, and he makes some good points about the nature of vandalism on this article. Nevertheless I still don't see that there is any problem with occasionally lifting protection. It only seems sensible to do this, though we may restore it after five or six hours. Not the least reason for doing this is so that we can build up a picture of the volume of casual vandalism, which is going to change over time. --Tony Sidaway 22:38, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • So you agree that semi-protection is not going to reduce the vandalism to this article during unprotected periods? — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-3 22:41
  • Well, I wasn't advocating being bound slavishly to policy, but consensus was developed, and now is being circumvented. I just don't get why the anti-wiki notion of not allowing anyone to edit should take precedence over the "inconvenience" of reverting this article. I put it in scare quotes since no one is being forced to revert it, so if they are sick of vandalism, they don't have to bother with it. They can just ignore it if they want, as there will be hundreds of other editors (who don't mind doing dirty work) right there to revert. --LV (Dark Mark) 22:46, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • When the edit summaries get filled with Jimbo's personal information, and the entire article has to be deleted and restored, causing the entire database to be locked, simply because someone decided to create a dozen accounts and start attacking this article, I consider it more than just an "inconvenience". This is exactly what happened several times in November/December. Semi-protection is not "anti-wiki" (whatever that means). It is simply a realization that this site is trying to become a stable encyclopedia, built by a community; not a demonstration of the wiki software. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-3 22:51
      • I'm done having this argument... again. For what seems like the 10th time. There is a purpose to consensus AND policy (despite the common misconception), and there is a reason people shouldn't have to register an account to be able to edit. Just because an account is new, does not mean the user is bad. Even long-time editors can put personal info into edit summaries, so why not just lock the article in its entirety? I've had enough of this nonsense. --LV (Dark Mark) 23:04, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • So that's it? You either get your way, or you leave? Is that what happened the previous 9 times you've been in discussion? — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-3 23:28
          • No, I am not leaving altogether, just not having this discussion again. Last time it was archived with no conclusion. I believe you were involved in that discussion as well. --LV (Dark Mark) 23:33, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • Don't ever expect to get be-all end-all results on a wiki, unless you go straight to Jimbo. It's not that simple. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-3 23:35
              • Oh, I'm well aware of that fact. I guess I just don't see the strong objection to unprotecting it occaisionally. That way, we are operating within policy, assuming good faith with anons, and not requiring people to log in to edit here. Is unprotecting and (probably) doing manual reverts every once in awhile that bad??? I just don't get why people are hung up on this. I get it, this page is vandalised A LOT, but why restrict editing to this degree? Why not just let us revert if necessary, and if it gets too out-of-hand, then semi-protect. There are editors who, while they don't like vandalism, don't think it's that huge a burden to revert (even, dun, dun, DUUUUN... without rollback!!!) every once in awhile. So what am I missing? --LV (Dark Mark) 23:44, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well if the edit summaries get filled with Jimbo's personal information again, we'll deal with it then. But now we're just talking about fairly regularly removing semi-protection for a while. I think that is reasonable. --Tony Sidaway 00:13, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh Gawd, has Tony started this crap again? How many times must users say no before he realises that no means no. This page is not his personal plaything to try experiments. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 00:20, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's not just Tony that supports the sometimes removal. Please read the thread before making personal remarks again. Thanks. --LV (Dark Mark) 00:22, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unlike Tony and yourself I've been dealing with vandalism for months here. While you and he can theorize all you want but the rest of us who had to fight vandalism minute by minute don't rely on theories but the reality. All this nonsensical game-playing achieves is open up the article to the very vandalism that the sprotection was stopping. It has been made clear every time that people who had to defend the article day by day, sometimes minute by minute, don't want unprotection at the moment. Every time Tony plays his unprotection games other have to pick the pieces and undo the mess his gaming creates. I'll say it again: how many more do people say no before Tony listens. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 00:46, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Jtdirl, please: it's fine to have discussion, debate, and even constructive criticism, but please don't imply that those who disagree with your position don't do our share of reverting vandalism or contributing to Wikipedia. I, and I'm sure others, don't appreciate this; I don't mind discussion, comments, or criticing on actions, but please don't say that we do not revert vandalism or comprehend the situation. The contrary is true. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:10, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Jtdirl, you are wholly incorrect and approaching incivility. As fact would have it, I have edited this article about twice as many times as you have, and Tony is so far ahead, you'll probably never catch up. [3] We know full well what happens here. So please refrain from making ad hoc attacks on people before you check your facts. Thank you. --LV (Dark Mark) 04:36, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some of us were directly involved in getting developers constantly to remove libellous claims posted here, libellous postings that were only stopped when the page was semiprotected. On one day alone I had to block the same user as he jumped between IPs 21 times and approach developers about serious libel posted by him 4 times. Frankly Tony's antics here, where he unprotects the page and then disappears and leaves it to others to deal with the aftermath of his experiments, are getting to be a right pain in the butt. Users have queued over and over again to tell him to stop but as with his other controversial antics on WP lately, Tony just ignores the criticism and does what he wants. If Tony is getting criticised it is because his behaviour warrants it. If the page is unprotected then those doing the unprotecting should be the people guarding it from vandalism and ensuring that all libellous editions are removed from the archives. That has not been other people's experience. He unprotects it, disappears, the page gets repeatedly vandalised, Admins get an extra workload of dealing with the vandals, as do the developers, the page gets reprotected, then Tony unprotects it again and leaves everyone else to deal with the aftermath. And so the saga goes on. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 05:03, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Right now this discussion ranks just above MySpace and LiveJournal, and just below Slashdot. Can we do any better? — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 04:50

I would be fine with Tony unprotecting the article for very short periods of time (a couple hours), provided that he monitors RC for that entire period to quickly revert vandalism, and provided that he interfaces directly with brion everytime Jimbo's personal information is put into the article. It is Tony's experiment, not the community's. Instead, he has just been unprotecting and walking away. I already proposed this scenario before, a couple months ago, but apparently was ignored. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 01:03

There are plenty of folks to revert vandalism and if we never remove the semi protection, then we as admins violate the policy. I've worked off and on with this article for over a year now and have more edits to this article's talk page than anyone else and am well awre of the vandalism problems here...User:Kizzle and I were the earlist contributors to the Bug report in an effort to enact some form of protection here, long before semi was implemented. It would be nice if twice a week at different times, we lift the semi protection for 4 to 6 hours and monitor the progress of edit quality. It isn't necessary for Tony or myself to sit and watch the page that entire time. Just my thoughts.--MONGO 05:03, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
When you unprotected the page, you said in your edit summary, "please allow to remain unprotected for a period to guage the level of vandalsim and be able to monitor how effective semi is working." This shows that, despite your long experience with this one article, you don't understand why semi-protection is not going to be "effective" at reducing the vandalism to this article during unprotected periods. Even Tony appears to be shifting his rationale for unprotecting away from this faulty reasoning. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 05:08
If so, I don't understand that either - I think we need to continuously try to encourage good behavior, not erect undue fences in anticipation of bad behavior. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 05:09, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the strawman. Can we try to keep on topic? — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 05:16
While you stay on topic (and apparently don't try to help me understand your point), can you at least do so civilly? Your dismissal was rude and unwarranted. A deep breath or two before your next edit, perhaps? -- User:RyanFreisling @ 05:19, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Brian, I'm not trying to argue, just stating that if we leave semi up all the time, we are all guilty of violating policy that was discussed ad nauseum during the adoption of the protection status, that clearly demanded that semi was not to be a permanent fixture.--MONGO 05:22, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't a part of any of this semi-protection policy discussion. If the rationale was bad, we shouldn't have to follow it. As I said above, don't expect be-all end-alls on a wiki. As I've also already said repeatedly above, I would be fine with temporary, periodic unprotection if it was properly done, or if the rationale were sound. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 05:27
No-one is saying the Sprotection here is permanent, just that it needs to be left in place for the moment on this page because this page is by far the most vandalised page on WP. Removing it is absolutely absurd. If it is left on long enough, then the band of vandals (and a lot of them seem to be the same people revisiting) will get the message that vandalism is not an option here, meaning that it can then safely be unprotected. But taking the protection off after relatively short periods is utterly stupid. All that does is send the message "don't worry boys. It may be protected today but it may not be tomorrow, so we'll just come back tomorrow, or the next day. We only will have a short time to wait before we can get it and vandalise again." Unless the protection is left for a sufficiently long spell for the regular vandals to give up hope of being able to vandalise it and so stop visiting it, the benefit of protection is wasted. Leaving them with the idea that maybe in four hours, or eight hours, or one's day's time, the page can be attacked again is utterly, completely, and mindbogglingly counterproductive. It is elementary strategic psychology: prevent an action for long enough for the habit to be broken. Allowing the action regularly will never break the habit, merely increase the length of time the page will have to be semiprotected. So quick unprotections make protection more, not less, necessary. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 05:50, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Read the policy page that was voted on by over 100 people. It clearly states that sprotect is a temporary solution...how long is this temporary period supposed to last? A week, or the next 3 years until the man is out of office. I dislike vandalism as much as anyone, but if we don't follow a policy as it is written, then we might as well not follow any policies. I do not believe that there is much liklihood that vandalism to this page will end until the man is out of office, and even then it will only slowly die off. Tony and I discussed this matter a day or two ago and we both agreed that the protection should be lifted for brief periods at differnt times to gauge the quality of edits. Don't call admins absurd or their actions stupid when all they are doing is abiding by written and endorsed policy. There is no necessity for the unprotecting admin to sit around and watch the article...but in fact, I did watch it and was beat on any rollbacks by the quick response of others.--MONGO 11:20, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Do not follow policy X" does not imply "do not follow any policies". If an argument has bad rationale, it shouldn't be followed. It should be judged on its rationale, not the number of people who supported it. I'm fine with unprotection on other articles, where vandalism is temporary and passes. This is a special situation. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 17:35
The policy page only says to "temporarily" semi-protect a page. It doesn't say for how long. As long as it isn't permanent, it is temporary, and I'm sure everyone would agree that GWB is a special situation. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 17:43
I agree completely. The meaning of "temporary" should scale with the amount of vandalism. It is quite likely that for this particular article, "temporary" means "while GWB is in office". And I don't think there is anything wrong with that. But I think the strenuous discussions here are at least partly due to strongly differing opinions on the priorities of the Wikipedia project. Some of us think the number one goal is to provide a useful source of information (and the "everyone-can-edit" is merely a means to an end) while others seem to think that the process is more important than the product. - Hayne 18:13, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
One further note: all the talk about how there are plenty of editors ready & willing to do the "dirty work" of reverting vandalism is ignoring the effect on the readers. There are many more readers than editors and hence the chances that a random reader sees a vandalized article is very high even with many editors ready too pounce on vandalism. This is another reason why I think that the notion of "temporary" should scale with the degree of vandalism. An article should only be unprotected if the vandalism is infrequent enough that it will be rare for a reader to happen upon the article in a vandalized state. - Hayne 18:22, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Okay, whatever, temporary simply doesn't mean for the next three years. I'll lift the semi from time to time to gauge the level of quality edits..it's supposed to be an open wiki and this article is not anymore special than any other. I will, of course, be there to ensure vandalism is rolled back as quickly as possible.--MONGO 19:51, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Lifting the protection on this heavily-vandalized article just to "test the waters" seems to me analogous to turning off the firewall and virus-checker on your Windows computer just to see if maybe the Internet has become a more friendly place in the past few days. Be realistic - it's not likely to change very soon. I support lifting the protection once in a while - but the appropriate time scale is measured in months, not days! And this article is (for whatever reason) shown to be more "special" by the amount of vandalism it attracts.- Hayne 23:57, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support for regularly removing semiprotection

On the belief that this is just one guy in favor of unprotecting regularly and not listening to many others telling him to stop, this is incorrect. User:tdirl and User:Brian0918 are asking me to stop. User:MONGO, User:Lord Voldemort, and others have expressed support for regular unprotection. In discussions on 7 January, User:Flcelloguy, User:kizzle, User:Splash, User:Greg Asche, User:Antandrus, and (with reservations) User:Voice of All all expressed support for unprotecting the article now and then to test the water.

Opinions change over time, and I'd certainly like to hear from anyone who supported this and has changed his mind in the intervening month. But in the meantime there does seem to be strong support for this pattern of unprotection, and this is in keeping with the spirit of the semi-protection policy and with our historical practice of applying protection sparingly. --Tony Sidaway 12:13, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The main reason I (one of the extremely few people who did) opposed the new semi-protection policy and implementation was because of this reason; I feared the constant semi-protection of a number of articles, limiting progress and advancement on them. In addition, it is also a little bit detrimental to our image (more on that below.) While I've been pleased at how effective semi-protection has been in other cases and how much it has reduced vandalism here, I am still concerned about the constant use of semi-protection and will stand by my opinion that we don't need constant semi-protection here. As Tony's tool points out, besides reducing vandalism, semi-protection has also lowered the number of "good" edits to the article. Are we to forfeit progress in order to stop vandalism?
The second thing I wanted to say was to relate an anecdote. Yesterday, while looking up some information on Wikipedia while working, a friend asked me what I was doing. I replied and explained how Wikipedia worked to her. I explained how anybody could edit, and that you didn't even need an account. So she decided to try it; her first thought of "encyclopedic article" was George W. Bush. As we all know by now, she couldn't edit. Her first thought: "Didn't you just say that all articles can be edited?" While I appreciate the fact that nobody wants to see a vandalised article, I still believe that this is presenting a bad impression of Wikipedia, where everything should be editable. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 15:08, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Add me to the list that supports frequent unprotection. If a newbie comes here to test editing and finds it protected, he will go to another article where there aren't so many watchers to quickly revert him. Let them do it here instead. NoSeptember talk 15:59, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not a democracy

The number of people who support you does not matter if their rationale are bad. As Jimbo said, "There are people who have good sense. There are idiots. A consensus of idiots does not override good sense. Wikipedia is not a democracy." While you are right that some of the "discussion" was merely personal attacks, not all of it (my replies specifically) was, and it is not right for you to group it all into the "personal attacks" category and ignore it. It's simple: give me the rationale for unprotecting the article. It it makes sense, then of course I'm fine with it, provided that the temporary unprotections are done properly, and look less like drive-by-shootings. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 17:27

I hope you are not saying that those of us that support removal are "idiots". --LV (Dark Mark) 17:36, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Only an idiot would think that is true. I'm still waiting for the rationale. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 17:40
So you are calling me an idiot? I see this agrument here: "A group of idiots shouldn't be listened to, and I don't think you fellas should be listened to, so I think you are a group of..." But we have expressed our rationale. It is per policy, it is a deterrent to good editing of Wikipedia, it isn't an overwhelming burden to revert for a little while once a week or so, and on and on and on. If this whole thing isn't going anywhere, we may want to think about a civil RfC to determine the use of SEMI indefinitely. Just something to keep in mind. --LV (Dark Mark) 17:47, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That does not follow at all. Also, RFC should be a last resort. We've just started discussion here, and you already want to stop it and bring in the cavalry? — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 18:11
I'm just telling you the way I read it. I'm not trying to "sideline discussion", I was just asking for clarification, not accusing you of anything. And I wasn't calling for an RfC, I was just saying that since I doubt we will agree, it is something to keep in the back of our minds. And this discussion didn't just start either, it has been going on since SEMI went into effect. --LV (Dark Mark) 18:49, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You have only to read the talk page and its archives, as you very well know. You don't have to agree with the rationale, remember, but disagreeing with it doesn't make it ignorable, and nor does it make those advancing it idiots. Equally, of course, the number of people who support you is irrelevant if their rationales are bad. -Splashtalk 17:44, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not ignoring the rationale by any means. It's just that, already, the rationale has switched once, and I would like to know what the new rationale is. I am also not calling anyone an idiot, just quoting Jimbo; this should be obvious to anyone who is not trying to sideline discussion by claiming that I'm calling them what I am not. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 18:10

Civility

I note that instead of discussing semiprotection, a lot of the argument is pretty much personal attacks. I'm not concerned so much about it because the target is me and I'm capable of absorbing any amount of that nonsense without taking it seriously. However, it does damage the atmosphere, and it also wastes energy because you end up discussing personalities instead of arguments. So please, let's tone it down a bit. --Tony Sidaway 12:19, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fully concur here. To echo Jimbo's words, we need to be extremely civil when discussing controversial topics and strive to assume good faith to everybody. I've been bothered about several discussions degenerating into somewhat incivil arguments, so let's try and act professionally here. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 15:11, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And for my part in this, if I have said anything to offend anyone, I am sorry. It was late, and I am prone to making small errors when sleep-deprived. Again, I apologise. --LV (Dark Mark) 17:02, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Again, some of the replies you got were personal attacks. Not mine. You cannot ignore my replies by grouping them in the ignorable "personal attacks" category. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 17:33

Vandalism - why?

This article has been getting a lot of vandalism all of a sudden - why, as far as I know, GWB has not done anything out of the ordinary. --Latinus (talk (el:)) 14:00, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dates

I see that lately there has been a string of people formatting and reformatting dates, and reverting each other over it. Could we perhaps have a discussion on here about this? Or has it died away forever? All or most of the people involved seemed like reasonable, responsible wikipedians who just happened to disagree, so it would be nice to work out what's going on. I would add, re one of the edit comments, that while there are differences in US and British readings of dates in 06.07.05 format, and these lead to confusion, everyone reads 2005-07-06 the same way, although it is non-standard in English-speaking countries (as far as I know). And nobody is confused by "6th July", "7th June" either. Skittle 14:56, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would disagree with you. I feel it is like British English and American English. Since this article is about an American subject, I'd stick with the American's date formatting. Not everybody reads the "standard" dates the same way, hence the reason for all the reverting. --LV (Dark Mark) 15:22, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is, I didn't see any dates in the 06.07.05 format, hence no confusion. The 2005-07-06 format is international, but not generally used in America or Britain. It is only read one way, but people may not be familiar with it. I thought the reverting was to do with an uncommon (and possibly ugly) use of the international dating method (which it appears the editor thought would render in a variety of ways, depending on the user), and others wanting to use more commonly used, unambigious, text dates. Skittle 15:59, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, either way, I am inclined to keep the dates spelled out the traditional American way. --LV (Dark Mark) 16:07, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Note that the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) says "Do not use numbers to express a month, except in full ISO 8601 format" - that would seem to prohibit dates like 06.07.05 - Hayne 16:23, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Right, but that's not what the discussion is about. It is about dates being in the ISO format. --LV (Dark Mark) 16:56, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In reality while people disagree as to whether to use dd/mm/yy or mm/dd/yy, hardly anyone uses yyyy/mm/dd. IMHO that form should not be used in a mainstream article because it is so little used by ordinary readers. As this article is about an American topic, the preferred US version, which is [[month day]] yy, should be used. I never use it except when working on US articles here, out of respect for US sensibilities (just as British and Irish topics should always use [[day month]] yyyy. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 23:26, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think there is a much more important date formatting issue at work here, the real question is, should be whether we use 2001 - 2004 AD or 2001 - 2004 CE to denote the length of his first term, personally it seems inappropriate to use the CE version, since George Bush is a born again Christian he might take issue with the removal of Christ from the date, the next time the article is unportected I think I'll fix this--64.12.117.13 17:31, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rumors about Dyslexia

I've heard rumors that Bush has dyslexia. Maybe it could be mentioned in the article?--65.167.69.156 02:30, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Make sure you properly cite the rumors and gossip. Any source is fine. That's all that is important... — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 02:35

Vandalism and semi-protection

My goodness! This article seems to be always semi-protected. What's the point in blocking anonymous users from editing? Most anonymous users would fix a mistake when they see one, but will likely ignore it if they can't fix it. Who cares if a lot of vandalism is going on? Good-faith editors still outnumber the bad-faith ones. We can revert vandalism whenever we see it. Bowlhover 15:52, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It has been suggested, and from time to time, the article is unprotected. Nevertheless, this article is currently under somewhat permanent semi-protection, as it seems to draw in an exorbitant number of vandals. The number of vandals makes it difficult to block the vandals, and the amount of vandalism makes the article quite unstable. Most readers would have no way of knowing whether the version they were looking at had been vandalised. -- Ec5618 15:59, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The other thing, Bowlhover, is that you haven't been around when the article has been unprotected. It's much more vandalism than you probably realize. Before semi protection, it was typical for us to revert 20-25 vandalism edits an *hour*. Not a day. Not a half day. An hour. This article was the main inspiration for semi protection to begin with. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 16:20, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Just a snapshot. On December 20th, 2005 (and this wasn't close to one of our bad days), this article had over 200 edits made to it and at least half was vandalism. Someone figured out that the article was in a vandalized state for over 2 hours every day. That's why it's SP so much. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 16:24, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is exactly the point I was trying to make. Half of the edits were vandalism, yet the article was in a vandalised state for much less than 12 hours a day. Also, most users would know what vandalism is--the most common form is easily identifiable. Who can't distinguish between obscene language and factual information? Bowlhover 18:35, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's not always that simple. I've seen users add information that is hard to disprove into an article as vandalism in quite a subtle way. Deskana (talk) 18:38, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Issues

I've been surveying this scene for quite awhile as of late, and its clearly apparent from the archives that these constant discussions will fail to allow parties to reach an agreeable concenus. As I've grown effectively neutral in the matter, I have taken a short analysis of both parties humble viewpoints and their reasoning for their standpoints. Please feel free to add points in the sub-sections if you feel I've overlooked or negelected to list something.

Constant Semi-Protection

Pros

  • Keeps the vandlism down at a almost non-existant level, whilst allowing many legitimate users to make constructive edits. No single user is ever prevented from eventually being able to edit this article.
  • Editors can have time to place their viewpoints on other areas of interest such as other articles and discussion.
  • The article is undoubtly an exception in regard to vandalism and may qualify for special actions to be taken.
  • Many annonymous editors account for destructive edits, rather than expansion of the article., enforcing the usage of SEMI protection.
  • From the recent poll, it seems there is a growing concensus for the action of consant Semi on this article. However, it can perhaps be assumed opposers of semi neglected to take part in the poll or another factor.
  • RC patrollers do not need to constantly watch this article on the chance that the semi-protection is lifted and vandalism begins occurring again.
  • There is almost no chance that edit summaries will be filled with Jimbo's (or others') personal information, requiring the article to be temporarily deleted, causing the entire database to be locked.
  • It agrees with the semi-protection policy in that semi-protection will not be permanent, only temporary. The length of time, however, will be much longer than that of other articles, for good reason.

Cons

  • Some good-faith editors who access the account through an anonymous IP or new account are missed in making constructive edits.
  • No data can be obtained regarding the vandalism situation, so we can't know when to lift the SEMI.
  • The constant use of SEMI conflicts against consensus and against established Wikipedia policy.
  • Requires people to register to be able to edit.
  • Requires registered people to login to be able to edit.
  • Semiprotection has reduced non-vandalism-related edits by an estimated 60% (source: Tony Sidaway, Feb 3, based on monitored statistics)
  • There is no reason to suppose that those willing to make vindictive, slanderous attacks on Jimbo will restrict their attentions to a small subset of articles that can all be permanently semiprotected.

Regularly- lifted Semi protection

Pros

  • Good faith edits are allowed to be processed into the article.
  • Surveys over the article's progress and situation can be gained.
  • The action is in line with established consensus and wikipedia policy.
  • Locking the article perhaps depicts a sense of superority to new and anon users, and may offend a potential constructive editor.
  • Most of the time people see an article that hasn't been vandalized.


  • Keeps practically all the advantages of constant semiprotection, namely:
    • Keeps the vandlism down at a almost non-existent level, whilst allowing many legitimate users to make constructive edits. No single user is ever prevented from eventually being able to edit this article.
    • There is almost no chance that edit summaries will be filled with Jimbo's (or others') personal information, requiring the article to be temporarily deleted, causing the entire database to be locked.
    • It agrees with the semi-protection policy in that semi-protection will not be permanent, only temporary.
    • Editors can have time to place their viewpoints on other areas of interest such as other articles and discussion.
    • Many anonymous editors account for destructive edits, rather than expansion of the article, enforcing the usage of SEMI protection.
  • RC patrollers do not need to constantly watch this article because it's on nearly everybody's watchlist.

Cons

  • Previous analyses have shown vandlaism edits have been high when SEMI has been disabled.
  • A full data analysis is impossible due to the various factors involved with vandalism.
  • Vindictive and slanderous edits may be processed along with good and constructive edits.
  • Un-protection is done randomly, so users cannot accurately know when to keep watch over the article, leading to missed oppurtunities.


The previous discussions had gotten off to a fairly good start, but future ones may fail unless all parties show good faith and are seen to do this in clear interest of the article. Some cause to doubt good faith has been given on both sides and I'm more than a little concerned. Hopefully, we can all come to an agreement on the matter. -ZeroTalk 18:13, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've added/corrected a few items on your list, as they were key points I've been trying to make for quite a while now. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 18:29
  • Since this article is unlikely to ever not be vandalised (even when Bush is out of office... example: look at the Hitler article), "Temporary" is just a euphamism for "permanent". --LV (Dark Mark) 18:59, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I disagree, but thanks for fulfilling Godwin's Law. I am not opposed to temporary, periodic unprotections, provided that the rationale are sound. More than likely, once Bush is out of office, the vandalisms will drop low enough to make this article a more productive place to be. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 19:48
Actually, I wasn't fufilling Godwin's Law, but thanks for trying. Godwin's Law involves calling somebody Nazis, etc. I was making a perfectly valid comparison between articles, not political philosophies. The Hitler artilce is another one of Wikipedia's most vandalised articles, but why? He's not in power anymore. So why is his article vandalised? Answer: because people hate him. People too hate Bush, so it is unlikely that vandalism will just magically cease January 20, 2009. That's all I am saying... no Nazism involved. --LV (Dark Mark) 22:50, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
For future reference, yes, bringing up Hitler/Nazis is the same thing. Read the article, not just the first couple sentences. I never said vandalism would cease, just that it would eventually drop low enough to allow productivity to occur. I was very clear about this. How you could confuse my words, I don't know. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 23:19
I have read the article... long before you brought it up, but hey, thanks for talking down to me. I like being treated like a little kid. Next, can you hold my hand while I go through an article? The reference to Hitler in an appropriate situation is a controversial invocation of GL, and your response is a fine example of Hayes' Corollary. But who cares anyway, back on topic. This article, when unprotected, does not receive an unmanagable amount of vandalism, and the thing about putting personal info in edit summaries will not go away when Bush leaves office. My point is vandalism will probably always occur, leaving office will not matter. --LV (Dark Mark) 23:33, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Violates WP:SPP: disallowing pre-emptive protection.
    • This assumes that the protection is pre-emptive. The reality is that this article is going to be constantly vandalized while it is unprotected, reducing the productivity and usefulness of the article, and those involved in its maintenance. It's not as if Bush is suddenly in the news, and we are protecting against the possibility of vandalism. The simple truth is that this article is equivalent to Wikipedia:Sandbox for most newbies. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 19:51

I agree that it's a bit like the sandbox for newbies. I don't really see this as a reason not to occasionally lift semiprotection (as I have done, with considerable support, over the past month). Some of the arguments used against lifting semiprotection occasionally seem a bit odd--for instance the idea that there is only a tiny amount of vandal-fighting resource watching this article and they need to be warned in advance. that's a ridiculous argument. The article is on nearly everybody's watchlist, and of the last 12 administrator rollbacks I'm seeing:

So here we're seeing 9 separate admins doing rollbacks. The interesting thing is that, looking at the next dozen or so rollbacks, I'm not seeing just the same people. The truth is that this article is watched by a phenomenal number of people and they're doing reverts. --Tony Sidaway 20:35, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Straw man. You are rebutting rationale that I did not use. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 21:05
Well I was specifically addressing the argument: Un-protection is done randomly, so users cannot accurately know when to keep watch over the article, leading to missed oppurtunities.
I don't know who wrote that, but I thought that it was pretty ridiculous, given the prominence of this article. --Tony Sidaway 02:02, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it is ridiculous, and it wasn't what I said. I don't know of anyone who said that. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-5 02:05
Presumably we could find out who did say it by examining the editing history. --Tony Sidaway 20:55, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article should not be protected for the same reason the daily FA is not protected; it is very high profile. I've said it before and I'll say it again, what type of example does it set to new users that they can't edit the most edited article on the "free encyclopedia anyone can edit"? -Greg Asche (talk) 00:48, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I definitely agree with Brian0918 that the article is probably going to be vandalized pretty heavily for a good long while now. I think Brian and I are playing on the same team and the argument over occasional unprotection is not so important; we should do it, though. As I remarked a couple of weeks ago, if raw vandalism rates dropped we'd be able to cope easily without semiprotection. As I've shown recently, the non-vandalism-related edit rate of this article has dropped drastically since semiprotection was imposed. --Tony Sidaway 23:55, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You don't have enough data to make such a claim (only 5 data points at different times of day on different days), and you have not made any comparison against the rates within Wikipedia itself. I also don't know whether you are including vandalism reversions as "non-vandalism edits". — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-5 23:58

The non-vandalism edit rate of the article is measured over the whole period, and does not pertain to a period of unprotection (indeed I'm measuring the effect of semiprotection on the non-vandalism edit rate). I'm not including vandalism reversions as "non-vandalism edits". Non-vandalism-releted edits are calculated by taking the measured vandalism reverts, multiplying by two on the assumption that vandalism is usually reverted immediately on a popular article like this one and so there is roughly one revert for each incident of vandalism, and then subtracting the total from the total number of edits. It's a very rough estimate, not to be taken too seriously, but it consistently shows a drastic reduction in non-vandalism-related edits starting immediately we introduced semi-protection. --Tony Sidaway 00:28, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Discussions on the Movement to Impeach section

This whole section seems week, illsupported, pointless and links to an article that states There are no impeachment hearings nor is an impeachment vote scheduled. Retaining this section would be like mentioning Cidny Sheehan's demonstrations against the president, or mentioning the names of celeberties who stated they would move to Canada if the President won reelection. While it maybe something to be linked to at the bottom of the page its not worth a paragraph in this article. --mitrebox 03:01, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

semi regular?

Bush attends services at St. John's Church (Episcopal) on a semi-regular basis

Doesn't he go to church almost every week? That seems like a regular basis to me.--Hbutterfly 05:32, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As President, I'd favor a guess that he is often unable to attend that specific church. -Greg Asche (talk) 18:26, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I suppose that's true. He's not always in DC.--Hbutterfly 20:59, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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