Talk:The Audacity of Hope

message: I recently wrote a summary for Donald Trump's Great Again Wikipedia page. I am now reading The Audacity of Hope and will be updating this page too. You can check out my summary there. I try to remain unbiased and objective. Please feel free to join me. The current content section of this page is too short and uninformative.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Allenbandow (talk • contribs) 15:54, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: New Book Content Portion Needed

message: Is this description for real? It reads like a breathless fan wrote it. What student of American history would take seriously any claim of some halcyon era "when Congress was characterized by collegiality and mutual respect"? I haven't read the book, so I don't feel like I am the person to rewrite it, but it definitely needs a description that doesn't read like a publisher's promo. In fact, I'd love to read a serious summary of it--what are these brilliant insights Obama has to share? ralian 19:26, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It was copied from Wikisummaries. Bearly541 04:36, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I think a better summary is definately needed. Joey Roe 13:49, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Obama's actual positions on issues, from Iraq to the interpretation of the Constitution, do not leave much room for bipartisanship or compromise. I read "The Audacity of Hope" and I find it mostly uninspiring and polarizing. 161.24.19.82 (talk) 15:04, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Not surprising that he has his interpretation of the Constitution, he was a professor of Constitutional law after all.  Though, if you could set aside your personal view about his book and write from a generally NPOV, I think your contribution to this article could be helpful.  The original author of much of the material didn't seem capable of that, perhaps someone who isn't star struck could bring some perspective to the issues he discusses. FantajiFan (talk) 16:03, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

text: I replaced the line with: "In the book, Obama expounds on many of the subjects that have become part of his 2008 campaign for the Presidency" to maintain the link and general intention without the incorrectness. --Snewhouse9@gmail.com 13:35 29 Sept 2008  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.95.14.210 (talk) 17:35, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Re: Summary

message: That poem is for me.
Kyle, 2/18/08 129.93.145.164 (talk) 22:49, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: And not relevant, out it goes. Kellwie (talk) 23:14, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  For Kyle 

message: There is a user who is consistently editing the page, appending the term "racist" in front of the reference to Wright.  As this appears out of context, I have removed this term and replaced it with a reference to the fact that Wright is "now controversial". Readers can follow the link to Wright, which contains a section dealing with the controversy. I consider this equates to a NPOV treatment of the matter, which is only of peripheral importance to the subject matter. KiwiMal (talk) 16:59, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Allegations of racism

message: See . Articles are not collections of quotations (WP:NOTDIR), and a section entitled "Content" should actually discuss the content, not consist of a collage of phrases.  Sandstein  07:44, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no ban on quoting from the book. If you want to add context, feel free. This isn't a reason to delete the entire section and replace it with nothing. It's only three quotes, all on a single theme, so I don't think the "Wiki is not directory" citation is relevant. Kauffner (talk) 13:32, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, it is your responsibility to add context. If we were to allow "only three quotes" to remain on this article, there is nothing stopping other editors from adding even more quotes from the book.  I believe you are looking for Wikiquote, not Wikipedia. --Bobblehead (rants) 02:01, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This is such a joke. I put context before, but that was deleted too. Do you have real reason for deleting the quotes? Why don't you try contributing something instead? Kauffner (talk) 06:01, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Your quote farm has been removed by four different editors now. Perhaps you should take that as a hint and try to convince us why the quotes should be included. Please do not add them again without getting consensus here. Thanks! --Bobblehead (rants) 06:53, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quotefarming 

message: Kauffner's latest repeated inappropriate and disruptive edits to an Obama-related article:
:A Reception section paragraph quoting two obscure anti-Obama op-ed columns that are not about Obama's book The Audacity of Hope
:—the subject of this encyclopedia article—
:and do not discuss the reception or impact of the book
:—the subject of the Reception section of this article—
:but instead each only mention the book once in passing:
::Noting that in the book Obama writes that, "There will be times when we must again play the role of the world's reluctant sheriff," Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby writes, "there will almost surely be times in Obama's administration when the United States will have to use force when others won't, to defend its principles or protect a threatened party." Other have wondered how the hopeful tone of the book has held up. "It was only last year that I bought The Audacity Of Hope by this fellow called Barack Obama. How audacious hope seemed back then!" according to commentator Mark Steyn.
:added 3 times by Kauffner:
:# 03:19, 19 February 2009
:# 07:44, 20 February 2009
:# 14:14, 20 February 2009
:and reverted 3 times by Newross.
Kauffner's only other contributions to Obama-related articles have been:
* The Audacity of Hope:
:A "Content" section comprising a personal selection by Kauffner of out-of-context quotes from The Audacity of Hope
:added 6 times by Kauffner:
:# 04:36, 17 November 2008 
:# 02:29, 24 January 2009
:# 03:45, 25 January 2009
:# 07:00, 5 February 2009
:# 01:42, 8 February 2009
:# 05:55, 8 February 2009 
:and reverted 6 times by Sandstein, Loonymonkey, Newross, and Bobblehead.
* Dreams from My Father:
:A WP:FRINGE theory that: Dreams from My Father was ghostwritten by former Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers
:added 9 times by Kauffner:
:# 08:34, 9 October 2008
:# 14:40, 9 October 2008
:# 16:31, 9 October 2008
:# 02:32, 10 October 2008
:# 06:57, 10 October 2008
:# 08:28, 10 October 2008
:# 02:59, 4 November 2008
:# 05:45, 2 January 2009
:# 04:33, 23 January 2009
:and reverted 9 times by 211.30.218.190, 81.157.49.0, Josiah Rowe, Wikidemon, and Grsz11.
:A personal selection by Kauffner of out-of-context quotes from Dreams from My Father
:added 6 times by Kauffner:
:# 14:00, 11 October 2008
:# 01:29, 12 October 2008
:# 01:48, 31 October 2008
:# 02:05, 31 October 2008
:# 13:48, 1 November 2008
:# 01:47, 2 November 2008
:and reverted 6 times by Loonymonkey, Josiah Rowe, and Priyanath.
* Project Vote
:An out-of-context quote:
::'"I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it," said Barack Obama.
:added 2 times by Kauffner:
:# 07:29, 10 October 2008
:# 11:32, 13 October 2008
:and reverted 2 times by Guyzero and Rick Block.
* Barack Obama
:An out-of-context State legislator: 1997–2004 section sentence:
:: While serving in the state senate, Obama voted "present" 129 times out of the 4,000 votes he made as a state senator.
:of Barack Obama presidential primary campaign, 2008#South Carolina trivia
:that has been discussed in Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 13#"Present" Votes.... Again
:and included in the South Carolina section of the Barack Obama presidential primary campaign, 2008 article
:has been inappropriately and disruptively repeatedly added 6 times by Kauffner to the WP:Summary style article Barack Obama:
:# 11:38, 6 February 2009
:# 06:17, 7 February 2009
:# 15:53, 14 February 2009
:# 02:51, 15 February 2009
:# 03:53, 16 February 2009
:# 16:42, 20 February 2009
:and reverted 6 times by Newross, Scjessey, and Brothejr.
Please immediately cease and desist making repeated inappropriate and disruptive edits to Obama-related Wikipedia articles. Newross (talk) 23:11, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You're complaining about edits of mine that go back four months and are mostly on other pages? Fascinating. As far as the recent stuff goes, Mark Steyn is the author of a bestselling book one of the most widely read commentator on the Internet. Jeff Jacoby has been a columnist for the Boston Globe for many years -- that's hardly an obscure position either. Kauffner (talk) 03:37, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

text: This is better suited for the Administrators Noticeboard to solicit an outside opinion than an unmonitored talk page.--CastAStone//₵₳$↑₳₴₮ʘ№€ 05:11, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reception - repeated inappropriate and disruptive edits 

message: The link to the "Audacity to Hope" sermon goes to a page selling an mp3.  No actual text, so it's not very helpful.  I'm changing it to a full transcript posted on Andrew Sullivan's blog at the Atlantic. (http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/03/for-the-record.html) There might be an even better source somewhere.
140.247.95.75 (talk) 15:16, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  External Links 

message: Reverting this edit because it seems pointless to lead the "reception" section with a pot-shot from a politically off-center critic that the book's title is "silly and callow" and snarky mock-speculation as to Obama's motives for choosing it.  The observation by another that Obama makes reference to the need for unilateral military action by America is interesting but lacks context, and it is not clear why this one comment in the book would deserve that much weight.  In general, critical commentary about a book is not self-sourcing.  Thousands of commentators, book reviewers, etc., have commented on this book.  Why should we choose one rather than another?  To establish that one particular opinion is worth repeating we would have to agree that it represents a significant and relevant opinion that the reader should understand in order to be informed of the reception the book received.  The same comment goes for some of the other material in the "reception" section, which should also be trimmed unless there is consensus for including it. - Wikidemon (talk) 15:24, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, if that doesn't work, you always make up another list of my diffs going back ten years and post it AN/I. Kauffner (talk) 06:55, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reception 

message: Has anyone investigated claims that Audacity of Hope, as well as other Obama books, was ghost-written by William Ayers?
   
—Enquiring Minds Want to Know  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.16.216.5 (talk) 17:40, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no reliable source for that, and it is generally regarded as an implausible WP:FRINGE theory.  - Wikidemon (talk) 19:59, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ghost-written book 

message: Wikipedia is supposed to be a source for notable events. The whole dog-eating incident has turned out to be very notable. Hell, Romney's dog Seamus even has his own Wikipedia page for God's sake. Yet to read this article, there isn't even a mention of the dog eating quote from the book and the subsequent reaction that took place in 2012. Very bizarre. I tried adding it referenced but of course someone erased it right away. I move to reinstate this content as it is very notable and it isn't Wikipedia's job to "protect Obama" or whatever is going on here. JettaMann (talk) 17:34, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: First, please don't accuse editors here of having ulterior motives, that's not going to win anyone over.  The material you proposed to add was neither neutral, nor reliably sourced.  The real, encyclopedic event, is not that Obama ate dog meat as a child in Indonesia - that certainly wasn't considered noteworthy on its own before candidate Romney's defenders got hold of it, and their using as a campaign smear now doesn't make the incident itself any more significant.  Rather, if there is anything here at all, the encyclopedic statement is that Romney supporters took up this passage from the book a different book - thanks Loonymonkey by way of disparaging Obama while deflecting an old incident that's been plaguing Romney for some time, after an opinion writer promoted the story.  That's not exactly earth shaking news.  If it becomes a truly significant issue, which is very hard to judge right now, it could be worth a brief mention.  In the meanwhile, if we filled the encyclopedia with every peripheral campaign matter of the day that hits the blogosphere, or every mention of someone eating dog meat, we'd have an undue amount of such material.  Everything about Obama, including many things from this book, has been raised in the last two presidential campaigns.  We try to take the long, encyclopedic view of things instead of giving a false gravitas to the daily output of bloggers and political partisans. - Wikidemon (talk) 19:27, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, then how does that explain the material with Romney's dog being given such prominence on Wikipedia? Everything you just stated about the Obama dog eating incident should apply equally to the Romney incident, should it not? JettaMann (talk) 20:51, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps you can make that argument over there.  Wikipedia has a million or two articles, and each with its own editors who try to keep their particular article under control.  Our opinion doesn't really count over there, but it seems that an article or article section devoted entirely to Romney's car-dog incident would also be political, peripheral, and thereby unsuitable for articles relating to Romney.  Seems like a non-issue to me for Romney or Obama, but might be a factoid for an article about the mechanics of the 2012 election.  Not to ignore the poor dogs involved in each case... - Wikidemon (talk) 04:34, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

text: More to the point, JettaMann, there's not much to respond to here, given that you're talking about the wrong book.  I believe you're referring to Obama's other book, Dreams from My Father, not this one.  At that article, this silliness was rejected by multiple editors for running afoul of WP:RECENT and WP:UNDUE (for reasons explained by Wikidemon above).  --Loonymonkey (talk) 19:56, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: How is the dog eating content not in this article?

message: While Obama and the preceding sermon-writers no doubt saw G. F. Watts's painting as symbolising a Christian virtue, the Victorian painter may have been aware also of Horace's phrase sapere aude which has influenced pagan and later secular writers for two millennia. NRPanikker (talk) 09:03, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Horatian background