Talk:Alben W. Barkley

message: I wondered what would have happened if Barkley had become President?
*Me too, actually, which is why I was kind of dissapointed by this article, which doesn't really say anything about his positions. --Mihoshi 18:21, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not logical to assume if events had happened differently that he still would have died at the same time. --71.131.31.243 (talk) 10:11, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: President Barkley

message: The final picture in this article is entirely unnecessary. Maybe in its own article, but not about a politician who visited, even if we were talking about Truman rather than his V.P.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.10.240.33 (talk) 00:49, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems more necessary than any other picture, to me.  It shows the world Barkley faced.  Why would it be inappropriate?  DBaba (talk) 00:58, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: That last picture

message: Is the recent rewrite too long and/or too detailed, and does it contain too many footnotes? Acdixon (talk · contribs) 13:09, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Barkley as a major national figure fades away when every trivial factoid gets included. Acdixon's edit can' tell the reader what is important and what is not, which is what readers need to know. Rjensen (talk) 13:43, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: "material that is challenged or likely to be challenged" is the rule and there have been no challenges at all in seven years. That refultes the "likely" business and leads to the degraded confusion of bloat. Rjensen (talk) 13:40, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  RFC 

message: This complaint honestly surprised me. The previous article was rated as start class by three of the four WikiProjects that maintain it. There were large sections of the subject's life that received little or no treatment in the article, despite reliable sources that discuss them in detail. Rjensen's complaint seems to be that the additional detail obscures the most important parts of Barkley's life. I contend that it provides context for those details. I did try to avoid "human interest"-type stuff that did not advance the narrative. For example, several sources mention how Barkley made his first campaign for office by electioneering door-to-door a one-eyed horse across rural McCracken County, but I didn't feel that rose to the level of needing to be included in the article. The length and level of detail seem comparable to other articles I've taken to FA status such as John J. Crittenden and Paul E. Patton. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 13:31, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Barkley as a major national figure fades away when every trivial factoid gets included. Acdixon's edit can' tell the reader what is important and what is not, which is what readers need to know. Rjensen (talk) 13:43, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Too long/too much detail

message: This falls more along the lines of something I might have expected. I stated my rationale for my style of referencing above, but I'll restate it here for simplicity. Wikipedia requires cites for "material that is challenged or likely to be challenged". That's subjective enough to include almost anything, in my opinion. Plus, information gets added, deleted, and moved around all the time. If each sentence has its own cite, the cite usually goes with it. If not, the cite usually gets lost, making it difficult for later readers to verify the sentence. Further, if that sentence later gets challenged, it's difficult for one of the article's primary authors to remember where it came from so it can be cited again. Although concerns about this referencing style do get raised from time-to-time, I have used it on each of the 30 articles I've shepherded through FA review, and each time it has eventually been accepted. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 13:31, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: "material that is challenged or likely to be challenged" is the rule and there have been no challenges at all in seven years. That refultes the "likely" business and leads to the degraded confusion of bloat. Rjensen (talk) 13:40, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Too many references

message: This biography seems to rely to a great extent on a very small group of authors - and, in some cases, may even use language too close to the cites given. I suggest this reliance be substantially reduced. Collect (talk) 16:25, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, Libbey's is the only full-length biography of Barkley that I'm aware of, so it's not surprising that I relied on it to fill in the gaps between major events in his life. I also consulted as many other sources as I could easily get access to. Can you point out places where you find "overreliance" problematic? If so, I can try to see if there are other sources that either corroborate or contest Libbey's assertions. Also, I'll be happy to try and address any specific issues you raise about too close paraphrasing. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 18:01, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: In any case, we ought be very careful to avoid plagiarism by slavishly using each point Libbey speculates on. Collect (talk) 18:38, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree about plagiarism, which is why I asked if you could point out problem areas. Sometimes, it's hard to see too-close paraphrasing when you yourself wrote the paraphrase. I don't feel I have "slavishly" used each point Libbey raises. I tried to cull out relatively unimportant details while still giving a complete picture of Barkley's service in each office. I hate writing an article where I say that someone served nine terms in the U.S. House (for instance) and then only being able to supply two sentences to say what they did while they were there. It happens sometimes, if there isn't a lot of documenatation on the person, but that isn't the case here. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 19:49, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  excessive reliance on Libbey etc.? 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Alben W. Barkley. Please take a moment to review my edit. You may add  after the link to keep me from modifying it, if I keep adding bad data, but formatting bugs should be reported instead. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether, but should be used as a last resort. I made the following changes:
*Attempted to fix sourcing for http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/published_works/singles/bib139a/bib139a.pdf
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).
Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 06:56, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Is his surname really pronounced /ˈbɛərkli/ and not /ˈbɑːrkli/? --Potapt (talk) 19:28, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation 

message: Please add the category :Category:People who died in office. 73.110.217.186 (talk) 03:22, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: . ◢  Ganbaruby!  (Say hi!) 09:22, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 14 August 2020 

message: In the succession boxes at the end of the article, for the first one under the political party offices section, please replace the section with the following so it links to the specific state elections for those years:
 2601:241:300:B610:39:E564:87F2:4525 (talk) 02:17, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: — CAPTAIN JTK (talk) 15:17, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 5 June 2022 

message: Since at least sometime in the 1950s or early 1960s, the debate team at Emory University was renamed and has been known nationally as the Barkley Forum. (I debated for them from 1975-79.)
The Barkley Forum has been one of the preeminent debate teams in the country since the late 1960s, if not before.
It also was the founder of and remains the  driving force behind the high school national Urban Debate League and has been a leader in high school debate also since the 1960s. 50.55.175.92 (talk) 20:26, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Emory University Barkley Forum Debate