Talk:Mike Huckabee

A CZ bio of a current politician has to explain both his strengths and weaknesses. We do so without endorsing him or attacking him. This is not an "ad" (which is not an appropriate term). Please discuss removals of text on this page first.Richard Jensen 23:30, 12 January 2008 (CST)

Please discuss removals of text on this page first.Richard Jensen 01:14, 14 January 2008 (CST)

I agree with this much: potentially controversial removals of text, even of just a few words, needs explanation on the talk page, not just the edit summary. That said, the text in question, "a winsome friendly attitude that puts voters at ease," is exactly as Christian described it in his edit summary: a personal opinion. Christian was mistaken to simply delete the sentence, because you are making a valid point, Richard, which is very important to convey if people are going to get the full story about Huckabee: he is attractive to some Republicans precisely because they find his personality attractive. On the other hand, Richard, as you surely know by now, other Citizens will not let it stand when you engage in such obvious violations of our Neutrality Policy. Why is this a violation? It's obvious: some people find him winsome and friendly; others would not opt to shower such praise on him. Hence we must attribute the evaluation to those who are willing to endorse it.

Let's please not discuss this. Please don't find news articles that say he is winsome and friendly. (Yes, of course they exist.) Just rewrite the sentence or let someone else do so, and compromise, Richard. As a historian, surely you understand the benefits of intelligent, principled compromise. I will be watching this page. If there's any further insistence of your retaining this obviously problematic sentence in its current form, and you don't make such easy and obvious compromises, then--in view of very similar sorts of stubbornness we've seen repeatedly--I'll be removing your rights to work on this and all other presidential candidate articles. --Larry Sanger 08:41, 14 January 2008 (CST)

I notice the change wasn't made. So I just used "rollback" to go back to Christian's latest edit. You can include your text, Richard, on the above conditions. --Larry Sanger 13:56, 14 January 2008 (CST)

time frames

I think this nice beginning of an article would benefit from a "5 years in the future" viewpoint. Would the authors feel silly if, 5 years in the future, someone reads it in its current form? The question arises in my mind: Why are CZ people writing about Huckabee? What would we write about him if he were NOT running for president? As far as I'm concerned, those kinds of facts belong in there. All the rest--having to do with his current campaign--should be added only after the fray is over. In the meantime, we could just state that, as of early 2008, he is running for president. We are not a news organization!Pat Palmer 13:53, 16 January 2008 (CST)

opinions

Personally, I would remove the entire 2nd half of the opening paragraph. I reads like news reporting, and it's temporary and I think we should just stop after saying he's running for president.Pat Palmer 13:58, 16 January 2008 (CST)

Just a note that I just posted in the politics forum, hoping to start a wider philosophical discussion of how to handle these articles during the remainder of the campaigns. It's bound to get hot!Pat Palmer 20:37, 16 January 2008 (CST)