Talk:Ron Paul/Archive 6

message: Why are there so many links on this page?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.210.120.214 (talk) 03:04, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  LOL WUT 

message: To me it seems that the first sentence of the third paragraph is quite biased: "During his 2008 presidential campaign, Paul has placed in the top tier in Republican straw polls and fundraising receipts,[5] but commands significantly lower support in phone polls of Republican voters."
Firstly, there is no reference on how he placed in straw polls.  An examination of the linked article about 2008 straw polls seems to indicate that the statement "Paul has placed in the top tier in Republican straw polls" is a little bit much.  The only ones he has placed in what could be called the top tier are straw polls of only a couple hundred people or fewer.  In any case, considering that this sentence is the first sentence in the article about his Presidential campaign, it seems wrong to highlight straw polls, which are generally recognized as not an accurate indicator of much of anything, especially when they're small.
Now, about the fundraising receipts, the only time you can say that he has placed in the top tier is the latest 3rd quarter results, and even then he was behind Guiliani, Romney, Thompson, and McCain.  He certainly hasn't consistently placed in the top tier, as the preceding "During his 2008 presidential campaign" leads one to believe.
I would suggest something like "During his 2008 presidential campaign, Paul has usually placed in the second tier in Republican straw polls, fundraising receipts, and telephone polls; he currently averages about three percent support in national polls.  Supporters argue, however, that increasing fundraising returns indicate increasing support and that he should be classified as a top-tier candidate, counter to the conventional wisdom of most political analysts."--Michael WhiteT·C 01:47, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You are actually raising a factual accuracy problem and I have tagged "top tier" as such. The problem is that the sources don't support "second tier" either (because there is no reliably-sourced definition of a tier, for one thing) so the statement will need more work. 1of3 12:46, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: 1of3 is a suspected sock, so I will not be speaking directly to him again and I feel free to revert his edits. I am removing the dubious tag because "top tier" is a purely mathematical conclusion made by reliable sources from the data available-- just as "not top tier" has been derived from the phone poll data; I will support this later. John J. Bulten 16:12, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What a convenient excuse for you to avoid answering the question of which supposed "reliable sources" use the term "top tier."  Convenient because the answer is none, at least that are cited by the references given in that statement. 1of3 19:46, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I always assumed John J. Bulten and user 1of3 are both sockpuppets. I'll still talk to them though. Turtlescrubber 22:43, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV issues in the lead section 

message: I have at least these two issues causing me to believe this article is biased:
# Paul's national polling number has been removed from the lead, where it has been for months. The person who removed it said the number was his "most emotionally charged item" but instead of recognizing that emotional involvement leads to bias, my attempt to replace the number was repeatedly reverted.
# The newsletter controversy is now under a section with a heading giving no hint of it, and suggesting that it was only an issue in 1996.  At least one source which supports important parts of it and shows that the issue was raised times since 1996 has been removed.  The offensive quotes have been placed in a "ref" next to two other references.  Footnotes are for references; that is why the tag that creates them is called "ref".  Footnotes are not for uncomfortable text which supporters wish to hide. 1of3 18:14, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: its fine.....--68.126.62.96 20:30, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV tag 

message: Yes, John,  you seem to be technically correct that a myriad is 10,000, so if you are talking about many 10,000s, "myriads" may be technically correct.  And also completely not understandable by readers, since the common usage of the word is to mean "a whole lot" and it is always used as "a myriad of".   Why would you choose to use an obscure usage to make your point?  This is an encyclopedia, and I'd recommend using terms that are accessible to our readers.  Not doing so is self-defeating, and, forgive me, strikes me as just a bit arrogant.  Do  what you want with it.  Tvoz |talk 23:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  myriads 

message: What's the deal? --Starks 10:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There's nothing to indicate that this photo is permissible for us to use; that's the deal! Have you read our information on copyright permissions?--Orange Mike 19:04, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is a better photo, but Miguel anaranjado is right about the copyright infringement issues. Turtlescrubber 19:08, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  I'm trying to give Ron a better photo, but somebody keeps reverting... 

message: Change the current photograph to this: http://a534.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/30/l_342e67365b4535684ff9940b19fcf04d.jpg  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nihilist23 (talk • contribs) 11:30, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you read our information on copyright permissions? --Orange Mike 19:08, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Urgent: Change the photograph of Ron Paul 

message: If so, why aren't we allowed to apply this principle to Ron Paul's photograph? --129.2.131.127 23:12, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That is a picture from the campaign, not Congress.  All someone has to do is call his campaign office and get an email saying they are releasing it under the GFDL, a commercial Creative Commons license, or into the public domain. Then copy that email into the image text and it will stick. 1of3 23:49, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aren't all photographs published by the govenment considered public domain? 

message: I've noticed the first 3 or 4 are used very little do we want to consider joining them? Gang14 05:59, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixing the archive so it looks like we have less archives but its still the same amount just condensed Gang14 18:14, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archive fix? 

message: The newsletter comments about Clinton are gone.  Need a reference?  Try pages 78-80 of this PDF file where a lot more is said about Clinton than the article used to say, in a completely sympathetic publication. Errinnoc 19:54, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  March 1994 Survival Report on Bill Clinton 

message: "He proposed legislation to decrease Congressional pay by the rate of inflation." - that sentence doesn't make any sense. Somebody feel like researching what he actually did? Did he perhaps stop raising Congressional pay to match the rate of inflation? Or did he actually propose pay cuts? --75.68.148.143 11:30, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good questions, here's another: Did he think Congress should suffer pay cuts as the public suffers from inflation? I honestly don't know, does anybody else? All of these sound like him... Wrad 18:18, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Can't source or verify this, but IIRC, the idea was: If the Consumer Price Index goes up 5% one year, then Congress's salaries go down 5%. Hope someone can verify -- and does anyone think that the Federal budget, deficit, etc., might be different if this were in place? Unimaginative Username 04:06, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

text: It does have a reference, which I put in when I put that in the article-- The Wall Street Journal. Articles do not have to be online to be cited on Wikipedia.--Gloriamarie 07:51, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reduce congressional salary? 

message: A Rasmussen Poll comparing Paul to Hillary seems pretty notable. It shows Paul leading over Hillary for 40-49 year olds. Here's some information, for anyone that has time to add it in.  Operation Spooner 21:34, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Polled against Hillary 

message: Removed worshipful praise from post. hope it cleans it up enough to stay up. Micheal Sean 03:30, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleaning up post 

message: Is this article a joke? I'm confused - even the top paragraphs seem like a joke, or are they describing his actual views? Maybe he is just the real-life stereotypical texan. Kitkatcrazy 09:51, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This article can be characterized in many ways, but I would not say that "spoof" is one of them. These are his views - and I'm not so sure that they are stereotypically Texan, more stereotypically libertarian/old Conservative, I'd say. Tvoz |talk 08:49, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, that was quite rude of me but I really wasn't sure! Kitkatcrazy 15:56, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spoof? 

message: The article mentions that Ron Paul has a picture of Murray Rothbard in his office, but the source doesn't mention it. Could someone either cite this or change it. 74.236.229.142 10:17, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the text. If someone finds a source then it can be added back in. Turtlescrubber 17:48, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rothbard 

message: This seems oddly put: "During his candidacy, Paul was viewed as the Libertarian Party 'standard bearer'..."
Why "viewed?" He was in actual fact, the standard-bearer of the party. It's not a matter of your view. 72.145.83.235 18:05, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as I am aware, the Libertarian Party has no party office called "standard-bearer". --Trovatore 21:42, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's an old metaphor, referring to the head of the electoral ticket as the visible representative of the party, and thus metaphorically carrying its standard. Since Paul was the Party's presidential nominee, it fits here. --Orange Mike 14:31, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Orangemike is correct regarding the Dems and the GOP, but the LP may behave differently, I don't know.  The LP has always seemed somewhat different (i.e. dysfunctional) to me.  Wasted Time R 16:48, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you'll look carefully, the editor even provided a cite for the use of the term with regard to Paul's candidacy. And as far as differentness: all parties which are forced to compete under the bizarre advantages the Dems and Reps have conspired to give themselves as a duopoly are bound to behave eccentricly because of the distortions created in their behavior by the system. I don't think any other nominally republican country forces most political parties to expend the overwhelming majority of their resources every election cycle just getting onto the ballot or maintaining their place thereon. --Orange Mike 16:56, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I put that in the article, and yes, there are two citations for it from 1988, which I believe are a New York Times article and The Economist. He was referred to at that time as the "standard bearer" of the party.--Gloriamarie 01:32, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

text: My remark was obviously a bit sarcastic, though seriously intended. Yes, I understand the metaphor, I just don't agree with it. When a party nominates someone for president of the United States, they are saying "this is the person we want to be president of the United States", not "this is the person who defines what the party stands for". Doubly true in this particular instance, because frankly I don't think Paul is all that libertarian. I think he's a convinced social conservative, different from other social conservatives primarily in that he makes up his own mind rather than hewing to the party line (or his faction's line). --Trovatore 17:01, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, when a party chooses to nominate somebody, for better or worse they are putting their party's standard into his hands for him to carry forward. If he wanders into forbidden territory, or fails to preserve the banner from soiling, then it reflects on the party. I'm not a libby, but I have many friends who are current or recovering libertarians; I understand both the arguments for and against giving him the nomination that year. They don't change the fact that the L.P., by giving him the nomination, put their sacred guidon into his keeping for the time. All the article says is that he had the custody of that sigil; and while carrying it he built up a fanbase.--Orange Mike 17:22, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I just flat disagree with you. A nomination for president is a nomination for president. Any meaning read into it beyond "this is the person we want you to vote for for president" is speculation. --Trovatore 17:24, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Whether you think it is speculation or not is irrelevant. The citations given from reliable sources-- in this case, The New York Times and The Economist, I believe, declare him to be, in those authors' and publications' opinions, the Libertarian Party standard bearer of the time. That is a fact that those sources published this and as such, it is worthy of inclusion in the article, especially since there is not that much information on that 1988 campaign in the article and I have worked hard just to get what is there from various sources over the last few months. Any further discussion on the merits of whether the statement is true or not belong on individual talk pages or forums, unless they directly relate to whether something should be included in the article, such as if you can find sources saying he was not like the Libertarian Party.--Gloriamarie 01:32, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: (Correction: it was The Economist and The Dallas Morning News, not the NYTimes.--Gloriamarie 02:07, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Standard bearer? 

message: In the sentence:
 "He supports revising enforcement of the military "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which he calls "decent", to focus on disruptive behavior and include members with heterosexual as well as homosexual behavior issues."
I think that the bit "... which he calls 'decent' ..."  is confusing and potentially misleading.  The context behind the "decent" comment is explained very well in the video.  He doesn't think any employer anywhere should be 'asking' nor any employee anywhere should be 'telling,' because in the context of individual rights, there is no reason for either of these things to happen.  Someone could read this and think that Ron Paul supports the "don't ask, don't tell" policy to some degree as it is commonly understood to be: a veiled anti-gay policy.  At the very least, I think it can be removed altogether because it doesn't actually serve to clarify the sentence at all.
Fonesurj 00:47, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just be sure that there weren't other editors in agreement with the edits - even though they were initiated by a sock, if there was consensus to his edits you might want to discuss removals. Tvoz |talk 15:42, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I deleted "which he calls decent" for F's and Gloria's reasons, and because I don't recall any consensus to that insistence of James's (Ben's). John J. Bulten 20:52, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Don't ask, Don't Tell..." 

message: It's bizarre.  I have a high-speed Internet connection, and pages on Wikipedia take less than a second to load.  In contrast, invariably, Ron Paul and Talk:Ron Paul take f o r e v e r  to load!  I have not had this problem with any other pages on Wikipedia.  Is this happening to anyone else?  Any ideas as to why this is happening?  Thanks!  -  Photouploaded 16:01, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not seeing any slowness in opening either of the pages. I did have a similar problem with Michael Schumacher for awhile though. sdgjake 16:10, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I get "Error" when saving some edits due to hang time (they save well, but do not reload the page). This might relate to size, for which fixes are being discussed above. John J. Bulten 21:03, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I and some others think it is more a function of the heavy use of the  template in articles with on the order of 200 references, but this has not been proven by experiment yet.  See discussion in Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29#any_work_on_the_incredible_sluggishness_of_deeply_edited_articles.3F.  Wasted Time R 21:12, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article takes a long time to load 

message: The Wired Magazine exposes faked support mails all over the net:
http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2007/10/paul_bot  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.131.210.162 (talk) 16:27, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In accord with WP:BLP and WP:TALK, libel deleted and heading adjusted by John J. Bulten 21:00, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Is that what the article REALLY says? Fonesurj 16:38, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

text: It just says someone used some spam techniques to advertise Paul for president in order to email as many people as possible. I don't see anything unusual or fraudulent about that. That's how people advertise through email. I don't understand why it's news even. Operation Spooner 16:52, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Spooner, spamming is widely despised as abuse of the entire Internet; it consumes an unknown but clearly enormous amount of human energy and time. Spammers are scum; people who forge headers are by law as well as custom fraudulent criminals. Do you really not understand the difference between legitimate e-mail between persons, and spam; or am I talking to a troll? Honest people do not advertise by spam of any kind, least of all by spam with forged headings, as Paul's supporters are reported to have done. --Orange Mike 18:36, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll second that. Spammers are scum. They are fraudsters, and they show total disregard for the people who's time and resources they're wasting, and I find such attitudes totally infantile and inexcusable in everyday life- why should people suddenly receive special consideration when they are inconsiderate online? That's like saying he would never hurt a child, he's a considerate guy when a "considerate guy" races at 70mph through a school zone. Online behaviour, like one's behaviour behind the wheel, does not deserve any special exceptions. I got a spam today that falsified a news story, saying that Britney Spears was dead, just to get me to click on a link. Disgusting. Those bastards will be the first ones with their backs against the wall when the revolution comes. - Eric 17:51, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree that spam is illegal and using such techniques for your own personal gain is fraudulent.  I think everyone agrees with that.  What the article does not indicate, as there is no evidence, is that Ron Paul or his campaign staff are responsible for the spam that is occuring.  There have been numerous well known spam campaigns for all kinds of reasons that are known to not be perpetrated by the persons that they have affected.  For instance, American Idol text-message storms that voted for Sanjaya.  There  were third-party websites DEDICATED to this.  Knowing that third-parties very easily organize and engage in these activities, it is not hard to believe that a technology savvy group of Pro-Ron Paul supporters are engaging in exactly this behavior.  I would think that it might even be likely.  What I do not believe, at this point, is that Ron Paul or his staff are responsible for it or have a hand in it.  As far as I know, they are not officially suspected of doing this.  If they are, a link would be great please! 67.53.228.87 19:03, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't agree that spam is "fraudulent." It's no different that mailing a paper advertisement from the U.S. to several different countries so that can be remailed out from those various locations in order to prevent the mail from being censored or restricted by government before they get to their intended end location. I think most libertarians would agree that there's nothing immoral about that and that should not be illegal, whether it's paper mail or electronic mail. More power to anyone who wants to do this. Operation Spooner 21:57, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know if I agree with that. Nevertheless, I don't think Ron Paul was responsible for the "spam" in question, and so therefore the original comment above has no place on his wikipedia page.Fonesurj 23:31, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't belong in the Paul article unless it can be tied to Paul directly. Celebrity articles don't mention every stupid thing their fans do.--Daveswagon 15:37, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm with Daveswagon on this; it's not relevant unless Paul or his campaign is doing it. I must say, though, that Spooner is the first libertarian I've ever heard defend fraud as a legitimate business practice. Even :SEK3 didn't go that far: he didn't consider tax fraud real fraud, since it was gummint (I sure miss arguing with him). --Orange Mike 16:54, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not saying fraud is a legitimate business practice. It's not. I'm saying spam is not fraud. Nor is sending emails to people to inform them about a presidential candidate a business. Operation Spooner 20:11, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Believe Spooner omitted a "not", which I supplied. John J. Bulten 21:00, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, thanks. Operation Spooner 21:32, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

text: It becomes relevant when someone posts mention of Ron Paul's high internet popularity in the article lead, when that's just an illusion produced by a carefully-crafted spam-campaign, regardless of who's responsible for the spam. - Eric 17:28, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Has anybody looked into the origin of the meme that Paul's popularity is just an illusion created by a spam campaign? I recall Fox News early on (without apparent evidence) dismissing viewer feedback favoring Paul as just a result of Internet activism by a few. It has been in the echo chamber ever since. Terjen 19:05, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know that I'd dignify it with the title of "meme"; such a hypothesis of :astroturfing is bound to arise whenever somebody shows up as more popular in the :netroots than :conventional wisdom would predict. --Orange Mike 21:11, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

text: The CAN-SPAM Act only applies to commercial email. Individual sending out emails to inform people about a presidential candidate is not commercial email. Anyway, guess who voted against the CAN-SPAM act? Ron Paul. I do not see how any libertarian could support making spam illegal. The equivalent of spam in paper mail is not illegal. Operation Spooner 02:05, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can see very easily how one might vote to make certain kinds of spam illegal, as it amounts to pollution and a disrespect for private property. Fonesurj 14:01, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Why bring up the legitimacy of spam? Most everyone agrees that spam is bad, but that's not relevant to the article. There's no evidence that the Ron Paul campaign had anything to do with the spam. There's not even any evidence that Ron Paul supporters had anything to do with it. It's equally possible that the spam was sent by others to cast Ron Paul in a negative light. Not that it's relevant either way, because there's no evidence, and it's not tied to the campaign. One thing that is for sure, though, is that Ron Paul's internet support is not simply an illusion caused by spam. The email spam originated long after Ron Paul gained internet support and started receiving fund raising attention. Saying that the support was faked by spam would be both demonstrably incorrect and lacking in any common sense. 68.181.240.94 21:59, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Net scamming? 

message: Do we add presidential campaign notices to articles dealing with people who are running for president?  Or, do we only add that notice to the presidential campaign article?
I put it up, feel free to delete it if you wish.
Ultimablah 19:32, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Presidential candidate notice? 

message: There was massive change in the piped links by John J. Bulten, who changed all or most of the links so they directed the readers to redirect pages. I find this rather... pointless. Will someone explain please. ~ UBeR 23:03, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Pretty simple. The links I put in are shorter or much shorter, which both saves a couple K (consensus goal for this page) and makes it easier to read the code (WP guideline). Per WP:REDIRECT#Do not change links to redirects that are not broken, "Some editors are tempted, upon finding links using a legitimate redirect target, to edit the page to remove the redirect and point the link directly at the target page. While there are a limited number of cases where this is beneficial, it is, in general, an unhelpful exercise .... There should almost never be a reason to replace redirect with redirect." The best link for readability is one that goes to a redirect named identically or similarly to the anchor text. It's rather silly to use the code Republican straw polls when a redirect Republican straw polls will do the trick, if it is justified only by the proposed benefit is that you avoid redirects-- that is not recognized by the guideline as a benefit. If the software on your box is not getting past the redirect to the linked article, that's a problem, but I doubt that. Near as I can see the only "problem" is that after clicking the link the user sees the fine print "Redirected from", which is in no way a hindrance that I can see. John J. Bulten 00:16, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What is Republican straw polls going to redirect to in 2012?  Sometimes using redirects is an early binding vs. late binding decision, and in this particular instance I think the safe course is early binding.  Or you could establish a 2008 Republican straw polls redirect and use that.  Wasted Time R 03:15, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point. In cases of ambiguity, precision is key. ~ UBeR 23:22, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

text: That's true, but that's the great thing about Wikipedia: people can recognize any outdated or erroneous info and quickly correct it.--Gloriamarie 20:00, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Piped link changes 

message: 99k! Okay, it's just unwieldy as such - I suggest moving his Congressional history sections to a separate article, perhaps Congressional career of Ron Paul (mirroring Hillary's sub-article), and replacing it in this article with a much shorter summary. Any opinions? - Eric 18:34, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In accordance with WP:TALK "Keep headings neutral", deleted profanity from heading. BTW Eric, I think that your idea might be the most logical next step. Will analyze. John J. Bulten 21:02, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

text: The presidential campaign section could use some trimming, especially since it already has its own article.--Daveswagon 01:35, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the article should stand for now. Considering his candidacy and the "overnight success" he has experienced in the last few days requires there be as much information as possible on Dr. Paul. If he falls out of the running or drops his bid the article should be reviewed for it's size. My two cents. BingoDingo 19:27, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  It's too big! 

message: In the penultimate paragraph of the "Campaign finances" subsection (of the "2008 presidential campaign" section), the date of the Boston Tea Party anniversary is incorrect:
"November the 5th being Guy Fawkes night, November 11th being veterans day, and November 16th being the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party."
I'm relatively new to Wikipedia and thus can't edit this page. Could an established editor please change this sentence to the following:
"November the 5th being Guy Fawkes night, November 11th being veterans day, and December 16th being the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party."
Thanks very much!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.131.103.182 (talk) 21:23, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incorrect date for Boston Tea Party 

message: Skimming this article there's a lot of incidental information that's not encyclopedic - what he wore at his wedding, the books that he read? Details of his campaign and legislation specifics? For an article of 99KB this is stuff that should be stripped out - the first left in the biographical books it came from, the second either in the information about those events or removed completely if those articles wouldn't survive AFD. WP:SIZE recommends breaking things up at around 60KB, and a page where you go to read about who someone is and what their achievements are shouldn't be littered with minutiae, especially when it gets in the way of highlighting the achievements. This page is huge. The commented out note at the top of the article itself says there's a lot of people with this on their watchlist - while I'm wary of overhauling articles others here will know much more about, I really recommend that someone gives at least a good attempt at stripping out the trivia. --Firien need help? 15:41, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We're working on it. However, your first group is appropriate as being thoroughly biographical, especially the books that influenced his unique place in political philosophy, and it provides much human interest which this article was previously criticized for lacking. The second group is overdue for movement to other articles, particularly the campaign article and a new legislation article. If we simply cut every legislation reference to a single clause or sentence, and linked to a full section of the legislation article which described the bill as much as anyone wanted, it would do wonders for byte count. Should that article be called "Legislation of Ron Paul" or "Bills sponsored by Ron Paul", or "Legislative history of Ron Paul"? John J. Bulten 16:38, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll stand aside on human interest, because it sounds like I've come in late on that one; it seems a bit odd, but if it makes a Good Article it makes a Good Article. On the article separation - it looks like from other pages the general format is "{topic} policy of (person or group)", such as Foreign policy of the Clinton Administration or Domestic policy of the George W. Bush administration; others separate out the topic completely, such as Mayoralty of Rudy Giuliani or Premiership of Tony Blair, though I'll admit it took me a while to find pages where things were separated out. Those would suggest an article name of "Congressmanship of Ron Paul", (though I'm not sure whether that's a word... Congressional career perhaps?), and there's probably counterexamples. Setting precedents is nice though. I don't usually venture into political articles, especially those for different countries; my apologies if I'm bringing up the same old things over again. --Firien need help? 18:20, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Senate career of Hillary Rodham Clinton would indicate "Congressional career of ..." as the best form.  (I don't think there is word form for this equivalent to premiership/mayoralty/presidency/etc.)  But I'd worry about its fate after the election.  Paul will likely still be a representative in 2009, but with the presidential race over will anyone still care about what he does in Congress?  Look at the history of Sponsorship of legislation by John Kerry: lots of edits up through the 2004 election, very few edits and no content updates since then, even though Kerry has stayed in the Senate.  Wasted Time R 01:26, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Excessive trivia 

message: In this video , does anyone have an idea, minute-wise, where he talks about using an excise tax and tariffs to fund the government? Brian Pearson 02:44, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know why you're asking for someone else to listen through it find out, but I just did for you and it comes up around 17 minutes into the video. Operation Spooner 03:15, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I actually wasn't asking for anybody to listen for me, I was hoping someone already had a good idea where it was. I figured it could've been at the 60 minute point, or something. Thanks for the information, though, I do appreciate it. Brian Pearson 04:05, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ron Paul cite question 

message: The reference to one of his opponents as a "trial lawyer" should be edited.  The author/editor made the article link to "trial lawyer", which is only a redirect to "lawyer".  This should be corrected.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.225.125.70 (talk) 03:03, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Why? --Trovatore 03:06, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incorrect "trial lawyer" reference 

message: I've just trimmed back the link farm under "External links". There were a number of blatant violations of :WP:EL there, but I left a couple of dubious ones in deference to the judgment of the rest of you who edit this article. Please examine my edits, but don't put anything back lightly. C'mon: SEVEN "official pages" including his MySpace? An openly labelled link to a fundraising site? MULTIPLE collections of his speeches, tapes, etc., collected, maintained and updated by his supporters? WP, as they say, is not a directory; and this had clearly gotten out of hand. I don't monitor every candidate's article; but if this kind of thing is going on with any other candidate, we need to do the same, in the interest of NPOV and balance. --Orange Mike 14:41, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you! Brian Pearson 00:44, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Link farm