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Talk:Al Gore/Archive 2

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Poll on controversial material

Since Chris seems to insist on moving all the controversies to a separate page, here's a vote:

  • Discuss controversies in main article, and only split up article into separate pages (Al Gore's career, Al Gore and the Internet etc.) while retaining summaries in the main article if it gets too long (a la country pages)
    • —Eloquence 22:19, Jan 3, 2004 (UTC)
    • Tuf-Kat (I agree that moving controversies to a separate article is biased in almost all cases, including this one)
    • Scooter 05:59, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)
    • Kokiri (Haven't followed the debate here, but the article is unbalanced: too much focus on these relatively small controversies...)
    • Anthony DiPierro Everything went fine until academic career. We were going chronological, then suddenly everything changed. That much detail does not belong in the main page. Add a quick summary in the various parts of the page (early and personal life, and 2000 candidacy) and then split the rest out. Same thing with military service and influence on the internet. I'm not sure what to do with Gore and the Environment, so I'll abstain from that section. Gore in the 2000 presidential election should be moved to U.S. presidential election, 2000. However, I think the 2000 Candidacy leaves out some important facts. It should mention the premature declaration by the news organizations, the early concession, the subsequent retraction, the court battle, and the eventual supreme court ruling. I think chronological is a good format for this page. But if it's going to change, then the whole thing needs to change.
    • Ryan_Cable
    • Jussi-Ville Heiskanen Agree with Tuf-Kat. In most cases splitting should only be done if the article grows unwieldy.
    • no point in hiding things. Jamesday 04:29, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)
  • Discuss controversies in main article and there is no need to split it (see below).
    • Jiang
    • Jack 05:38, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)
    • Mcarling 05:58, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)
    • UtherSRG 02:55, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)
    • Ilyanep 21:38, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC). List it as a seperste section

This is not a vote on whether all of the material is relevant or verifiable and should be kept. As instigator of this vote, I'm not involved in this page and have no opinion on that. It is merely a vote on the future structure of the article.

I personally feel strongly that only the second option is in compliance with NPOV, because having all controversies on a separate page increases the visibility of positive information, and decreases the visibility of (potentially) negative information.—Eloquence


  • I vote to leave on seperate page. If you look at people such as Nixon, Bush, ect. they all have such material under "Related Pages". Doing this to the Gore article would violate the POV. Leave it on it's seperate page. ChrisDJackson
  • Real mature. Lock the page with it on there and stiffle the vote. Real mature.
Chris, first, we have to assume the possibility that other pages are in violation of NPOV and need to be corrected similarly. Second, a cursory read of NPOV will illustrate that not all views have to be given the same exposure. Little-supported fringe views can be discussed on separate pages, such as the various Bush conspiracy theory pages. Some of the views presently in this article may qualify as such. However, stuff like the "created the Internet" quote is strongly associated with Al Gore even in the mainstream, and belongs in the main article.—Eloquence
It belongs in the main article, but a simple note about the CNN quote, the metamorphed quote, and the defense (it's not exactly what he meant, and he was influential) can then point to a separate page with more details Anthony DiPierro 02:41, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)

OK, in order to stop the edit war I have protected this page. I encourage everyone interested in this matter to vote above and discuss ways to resolve the conflict that led to the protection. Since I am the person who protected this page I will abstain from voting. --mav 22:32, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

  • What the hell does a stupid thing like a quote that was taken out of context have to with Al Gore's life and career. Do I see anything about Bush's dumb quotes or the "Mission Accomplished" banner he stood under. Or how about the WMDS he said were in Iraq. If you leave this in here, I will write all that stuff about Bush and put it on his page. There is nothing about the current article that is biased. Saying Gore won the popular vote and such is not biased. If you think things like the internet quote is important wait till I get ahold of the Bush page. c
It's arguable whether "Mission Accomplished" has reached sufficient political prominence to deserve being discussed in the main article about the current US President, but if it is used repeatedly in the 2004 campaign, I think that it certainly ought to be discussed somewhere, perhaps in a sub-article about Bush's handling of the Iraq war. If anything, articles need to be split up according to subject, not according to emotional impact of the information contained therein.—Eloquence

Well, you can bet if this is put on Gore's page, I will write about Bush going AWOL from the national gaurd during Vietnam.ChrisDJackson

Please do. I think an NPOV discussion of GWB's military career definitely belongs in the article about him.—Eloquence

The article is currently 30 kB long (approaching, but not over the suggested 32kB limit). If you read the controversies section, you will notice that much of it overly wordy (fails to omit needless commentary) and can be summarized. I elect to merge the controversies with their relevant sections. We are not a narrative. We dont need to say "this person said this...that person said that..." So the first two paragraphs in academic performace could read:

On March 21, 2000, the Washington Post reported that in his second year at Harvard, Gore earned a D in one science course, a C-minus in introductory economics, and two C-pluses and a B-minus in other, unspecified courses and during his junior year, Gore earned a B, B-plus, and an A-minus in three government courses. (See United States academic grade.)

During the 2000 Presidential campaign, conservatives, adding that at Vanderbilt Divinity School, Gore failed five of the eight classes he took over three semesters, and that Gore never completed his degree at Vanderbilt Law School, pointed out that this evidence seemed to contradict the popular perception that George W. Bush was the less intelligent of the two candidates.

Likewise, the first paragraph of the military section could be relived of it's overly general and didactic fluff:

Because Gore was able to stay away from the front lines as a journalist and served only two years in Vietnam, some conservatives accused Al Gore of insufficient military service, implying a lack of patriotism.

--Jiang 02:31, 4 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I think it is time to unlock this page, it seems the debate is over. ChrisDJackson
So what do you plan to do with the article once it's unlocked? help merge the controversies with relevant sections? --Jiang
Regardless of what is done, I think users with a true NPOV should take the lead on this one - which User:ChrisDJackson honestly has yet to show. He has been offered chances to work with the users here, and has chosen not to, or to become confrontational, each time. If anyone cares to ask, I can see what I can do with particular parts of this article - I certainly don't have anything invested in it emotionally. Scooter 05:59, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Yes, I will let someone merge them as long as it is done with the Bush page. I have always said I am ok with it as long as it is fair and it follows the guidlines as all other public figures pages. ChrisDJackson
Your suggestion for the Bush page belongs on the Bush page, not here. Perhaps also you could bring it up on the Manual of Style (biographies), if you'd like to have a standard across all biographies. There is a strong consensus that any splitting take place along the topical lines which have already been set, and even then this is controversial. For the sake of consensus, let's hold off on all splits for at least a week after the page is unlocked, and then only after bringing it up on the talk page. I suspect there's going to be a lot of editing of this page when the protections are lifted, I know I personally have a number of minor edits I'd like to make. Let's get them out of the way and stabalized, before we even consider splitting. Anthony DiPierro 17:52, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I've lifted the protection. Go ahead and merge, or whatever. I won't be doing anything just yet. --Jiang 21:48, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Photo

Chris, Who said the pic had to be recent? Your pic has him looking away from the camera, and has abnormal colored lighting, like what we should see Adolf Hitler portrayed in a Nazi propaganda poster. He doesn't look much aged. What's wrong with the original pic? --Jiang 05:11, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I just don't really like it. It was from 1993 and is old. If I find a really good recent one, I might use it. I actually have the photo being used now autographed and framed on the wall, so I guess I want a fresh photo on here. Lol about Hitler. That pic was from the gov or Gore2000 in 2000 and was used quiet frequently. ChrisDJackson

You still have not shown where these photos were obtained. The current one is public domain. Anthony DiPierro

Someone please protect this page. I would, but I'm involved with the argument on Wikipedia:Possible copyright infringements. Evil saltine 07:24, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Nonsense, there was no need to protect this page again. Anthony DiPierro 08:00, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)
There was an edit war between you and User:ChrisDJackson, this is the general way of resolving it. Evil saltine 08:02, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)
The edit war was over. Your protection of the page was completely inappropriate. Anthony DiPierro 08:06, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)
It would have continued to be reverted back and forth, it wasn't over. Evil saltine 05:35, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)
No it wouldn't have. I removed my sentence in contribution and was going to sleep. Anthony DiPierro 05:37, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Okay, I had reason to believe that the edit war would continue. Evil saltine 05:45, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I guess I can protect it, since I'm not directly involved in the argument on this page. Er.. I guess you can argue on here then. Evil saltine 08:02, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I told you all earlier that this person was up to no good. I try to keep this page very informed with info and pics, but people like him hinder this. His repeated accusations of copyvio and proving nothing was one indicator. Then he posted this pic on the page: http://en.wikipedia.org/upload/5/5a/Gorejob.jpg

That is vandalism. ChrisDJackson

If ya can't beat 'em, join 'em. Anthony DiPierro 07:33, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Anthony DiPierro: you deleted the following text from this article, with the edit summary 'removed copyright violation' : "Gore went on to marry Mary Elizabeth Aitcheson (Tipper Gore), whom he met at a high school dance in Tennessee[1]"

Could you please show me how that is a copyright violation? A google search brings back nothing. Unless, of course, it is printed within a book. - Mark 08:00, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I wrote it. Anthony DiPierro 08:01, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Really? Where? - Mark 08:04, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Here. Anthony DiPierro 08:05, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)
By submitting content here you release it under the terms of the GFDL. --snoyes 08:07, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)
And by adding copyrighted images to it the GFDL is violated. Anthony DiPierro 08:08, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I still fail to see the copyright violation. Are you saying that your text violates its own copyright by existing? Because once you submitted your edits, you released it under the GFDL and that is kind of permanent. A minor breach of the GFDL by a separate segment of the article does not revoke the licence for the entire article, or the entire encyclopedia. - Mark 08:11, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)
By adding copyrighted images without releasing those images under the GFDL, you are violating the copyright on my text. Therefore I removed my text. Read section 9 of the GFDL. Any breach of the license on my text automatically terminates the rights to use my text under the license. If you add my text back again you will be in willful infringement of my copyright. Rephrase the damn sentence, or remove all non-public domain or GFDLed images. Anthony DiPierro 08:15, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)
From Wikipedia:Copyrights: "However, you can never retract the GFDL license for the versions you placed here." And from section 9 of the GFDL: "However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance." As far as I can understand it, this refers to your text. You are not the original author of the article as a whole, just the sentence in question. If you wish to take this legal matter further, please contact the Wikimedia Foundation. - Mark 08:27, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)
You are not permitted to add restrictions to the GFDL. And by adding images and creating an unlawful derivitive, you are *not* in full compliance. If you add my text back you will be in willful infringement of my copyright. Tell your excuse to the judge. Anthony DiPierro 08:30, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Indeed I shall. May I ask which jurisdiction you intend to file this motion? Of course, you must know that no damages are recoverable under the common law unless you take reasonable steps to mitigate your 'loss'. In other words, if you do not attempt to contact the Wikimedia Foundation (the company responsible for hosting this copyright violation) then any legal actions will not be successful. - Mark 08:42, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Punitive damages are available for willful infringement. Anthony DiPierro 08:44, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Infringement by who? Those restoring your copyrighted text? Or the Wikimedia Foundation? - Mark 08:46, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Anyone who infringes my copyright willfully. Anthony DiPierro 08:48, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)

My apologies for inadvertently editing Al Gore while protected. Unfortunately the "rollback" function does not allert the admin to whether or not the page is protected, so I did not see that it was infact protected. --snoyes 08:25, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It's fine. :) Evil saltine 08:28, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Root Causes

Instead of only voting, we should try to get at the REASONS people want to include (or suppress) information.

The cases of Al Gore and George Bush are related, because they were presidential candidates in a closely contested election.

Intelligence

Some advocates argued, in effect:

  • A president needs to be "smart enough" in order to qualify for office.
  • Bush (or Gore) is not "smart enough", as proved by (a) these quotations, or (b) those college grades.

Neutrality

Rather than suppressing or hiding the quotations or grades, why not provide a full analysis of the issue? Say that certain partisans (and name them) have argued that Bush is unqualified for the presidency because of (and give the partisan's arguments).

For example,

  • Norm Einstein, dean of graduate studies at Famous University, says, "Bush is too stupid to be president. He constantly makes grammar mistakes and other simple language errors when making public speeches."
  • Harold Hack, editorial writer for the New York Times, says that Bush ignores the best and latest scientific findings on environmental issues, and adds that "Bush scares me."

Or:

  • CNN quoted Gore as saying he "took the initiative in creating the Internet"


Furthermore, the neutral comment on the 2000 election is not that 'Gore won the popular vote', since this is very sloppy. In fact, there was no popular vote to win nationally, and had there been, voter turnout would have been altered (as well as voter choice, Nader, Buchanan, Browne, etc.).

Correction: add when hold is removed from website: Gore received a plurality of popular votes cast nationally, and [500,000] more than Bush received, but he lost the election in the Electoral College by [4] votes cast. Many people say he lost by one vote, in reference to (presumably) Thomas or O'Connor on the Supreme Court which narrowly decided, on one legal issue, to stop counting in certain Florida counties, thereby awarding the Florida electors to Bush. In fact, while the Justices may have prevented further re-counting and a possible Gore victory in Florida, the 5-4 verdict did not itself take away a 'Gore victory', only the possibility of one. Finally, the Supreme Court voted 7-2 that the further recounting in general would be inequitable to Florida voters statewide, and thus a 'Gore victory' did not hinge on 'one vote' on the bench. In any case, even with a 'popular plurality', Gore cannot be said to have 'won the popular vote' since there was no pre-defined method of selecting 'winners' of a popular vote nationwide (indeed, the only determinative method is a majority of votes in the electoral college, and lacking that, other constitutional outcomes).

Issues and views section

This section is a monster that looks like a set of lecture notes or points to address in a speech (most of the sentences are not even complete). This is very different from regular Wikipedia and encyclopedia style that addresses issues mostly with prose and only uses bullet points on a limited basis. IMO, this section unbalances the article and makes much of it a platform statement for Gore (who I happened to vote for, BTW). What does everybody else think? --mav 05:31, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I would advise you to look at Dean/Kerry/Bush and see that they too have a issues section. First you all bitch about a quotes section describing his views, now this. Either way, one is going to stay. There is nothing wrong with the way the views are layed out. You just want something to bitch about. I can't edit this page anytime without someone rearing their ugly head and complaining, and frankly it is getting old. ChrisdJackson

I just checked the Dean, Bush, Clinton and Kerry articles. The Dean and Kerry articles are pretty bad in this regard as well but not as bad as the Gore article is now (Gore just happens to be on my watch list while the others are not - I can't fight very battle). At least all these examples have complete sentences and paragraphs for each of the views section. I suggest that the views section be moved to another article and worked on there. A summary could then go here. --mav

images

does this article really need TEN images? Can we narrow it down to 4? Kingturtle 02:55, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Most of the images are copyright infringement anyway. Anthony DiPierro 05:32, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

there are eight images at here that were uploaded by User:ChrisDJackson. none of the images provide evidence that they are NOT protected by copyrights. This needs to be resolved ASAP. Kingturtle 22:25, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Unless evidence is shown that the images were released from copyright or licensed under GNUFDL, then I will delete the non-fair use images at Wikipedia talk:Possible copyright infringements/Al Gore images in 24 hours. Images are automatically copyright unless they are released from copyright. --Jiang 22:36, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
As promised, that has been done. --Jiang 07:38, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Each of these images needs to be verified before going onto the article:

P.S. ChrisJackson, in your last post, your summary said "What evidence do any of you have? None? And no I am not explaining everything I upload or add to this site, because I don't have to." The bottom line is, YES, YOU HAVE TO. As I expressed earlier today on your talk page: Any copyright violation in Wikipedia could potentially threaten the future of Wikipedia. Therefore, we must always err on the side of caution. Evidence does not need to be provided that an image is protected by copyrights. Evidence MUST be provided that an image is not protected by copyrights.

Please review Wikipedia:Image description page. None of these images have the appropriate description. It is your responsibility to describe your images and insure us all that the copyright is not being violated. Kingturtle 00:09, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

They are right, Chris, the burden of proof is on you. Please check the copyright status of each image before uploading, and note them as specified. -- The Anome 00:13, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Again, I gave a breif desript of each. Also this was resolved the last time when the accuser failed to pin any of the images. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Possible_copyright_infringements/Al_Gore_images User:ChrisDJackson

  • If things were resolved, you still failed to update the descriptions of each image. Let's make sure the descriptions are explicit. Kingturtle 10:01, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Dammit, I want the beard picture in there right this moment! Acornlord 08:43, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Copyvio discussion

Moved here from Wikipedia:Possible copyright infringements: (Texture 19:30, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC))

  • Al Gore: Issues and views, from [3] [4] [5], etc. All the contributions by Chris D. Jackson are suspect. Anthony DiPierro 05:20, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • We don't usually delete articles because they have copyvios in the history. Just an observation. Morwen 07:50, Feb 27, 2004 (UTC)
      • I see this being discussed at Wikipedia talk:Copyright violations on history pages. It is a question if we are violating copyright by keeping it in the history. The two solutions are some method to scrub it from history or to delete and recreate the entire article without copyrighted content. - Texture 04:03, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
      • This isn't a request to delete the page. I'm listing it here because I want to get a consensus before removing the information from the Gore page, because I know Chris is going to get into an edit war over it. Also, the Al Gore page is currently protected (due to an edit war involving Chris), so it's going to take a sysop to remove the infringing content. Anthony DiPierro 23:34, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
      • Yea you remove it and I will add it back. What the hell is your problem? You are like a damn police man/stalker. There is nothing copyvio about putting in quotes from someone about their views. If you want to challenge me, go ahead, ass. User:ChrisDJackson
    • Quotations of the types on those source pages are not going to be copyvios unless the article copies many form the same source arranged as the source arranged them. Please take the fight to the article talk page. Jamesday 00:09, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)
      • These aren't quotes, and there are a large number all taken from the same source. Anthony DiPierro 00:23, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)
        • Please cite a specific edit or chunk and the source claimed for it. Jamesday 00:39, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)
          • I already did. Issues and views, from [6]. Anthony DiPierro 00:54, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)
          • And here is one of the places he added it, with the comment: "I dont konw what the hell you are talking about, none of those are quotes. I think you need to read before you act" [empasis mine] Anthony DiPierro 01:02, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)
          • From the first three sections of that addition, the following are word for word from that site:
  • Ban partial-birth abortions, except for maternal health.
  • Tipper & Al pushed for voluntary record lyric labeling.
  • Confederate flag divides-remove it, but no boycott.
  • Review disenfranchisement of felons but keep concept.
  • Affirmative Action: mend it, don't end it.
  • Close gender gap; equal pay for women.
  • Find some way for civic union; but not gay marriage.
  • Eliminate don't ask, don't tell; let gays serve in army.
  • Against vouchers; build up public schools instead.
  • For-profit schools OK within public system.
  • Shut failing schools; then re-open & turn them around.
    • Do you need more, because most of the rest are from there too? And the ones that weren't were probably from an older version, the phrasing is very similar, and I specifically remember the phrasing of the first one as being from that site. Anthony DiPierro 01:14, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  • Dude statements about someones views are not copyrighted. If I say George Bush is opposed to abortion and another site has that on there, that is not copyvio because it is general information. Just like info on someone's weight, height, views, birthdate, etc. General info is not copyvioable.

Is there any resolution of this issue? - Texture 19:30, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

ChrisDJackson seems to be the only person opposing deletion. Anthony DiPierro 00:18, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Here is the rest of it:

  • Image:Gore2004tn.jpg - uploader has failed to provide evidence that these are under PD or released under GFDL. --Jiang 08:19, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Return to copyvio if necessary. - Texture 19:36, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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