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# Stupid Republicans/Talk

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Note from one Wikipedian to another: I know it's going to upset some people, and anyone can move it back, but I have moved the "Stupid Republicans" entry to this Wikipedia commentary page, because it contains a lot of stuff that, I think, isn't exactly objectively-stated fact in a balanced fashion. Now, that in itself might not even be enough to remove it to the commentary page. What pushes it over the edge is the highly-charged political nature of the entry, which in my opinion, at least (just my opinion), threatens to set a bad precedent.

I think this could easily be rewritten, perhaps with a different title ("perceptions of intelligence in American politics"?), and made fact-stating. It could still convey the facts that many people believe Republicans are stupider than Democrats--sure, that's a fact--and that the media vote Democrat. But, basically, it should be something that should make everybody happy, Republicans and Democrats like.

There are some good reasons for some of these...Bush has a record for saying things that sound remarkably similar to English, but aren't quite, and there was the beautiful incident where Reagan assimilated a WWII movie into his personal record. I think maybe the complaitn should be changed to "not enough stupid Democrats are recognized as such." ;)

Umm...doesn't this belong in Wikipedia commentary? It isn't anything close to being an encyclopedia article. Not that I think Republicans are stupid, or anything.

And since when does has a piece of paper (diploma) ever been indicative of intelligence anyway. At best it is one of many, many measures. Oh, and by the way LMS, at exactly what point in time did wikipedia be determined to be an encyclopedia? And by whom? I was under the misapprehension that it was a wiki run by Bomis. And, finally, I was not aware that we had an Editor-In-chief here to begin with, much less one weeding out bias. The Campaign Against Covert Action is starring right at you, Sir. and asking you to be open in your actions here, to declare you intentions here, and not enter material here in the guise of a member, while, in fact, you are acting like a "boss.' AnonymousCoward.

Well, I think that the name "Wikipedia" would imply that this project was aiming to be an encylopedia. Also, there's this quote from the front page: "We're writing a complete encyclopedia from scratch, collaboratively." And, there seems to be a great desire on the part of the community to write encyclopedia articles. Finally, I hardly think that a comment by Larry (which I happen to think is a valid one) constitutes him acting like a "boss". It's not as if he's using administrative power to delete pages he doesn't like. All in all, I think you should lighten up a bit. ;-) -- STG

As I remember, this remark about wikipedia being an encyclopedia was not always on the home page. There is a lot of history behind my comments that you may or may not be aware of. Further, I find it is hard to believe that a user takes LMS's remarks with equal force that they would take "just an ordinary user's". You may disagree with me, of course. AnonymousCoward

- I have little knowledge of the history of Wikipedia. What I do know is that an encylopedia to which anyone can contribute is an idea that I'm excited about. If there are people here that are not interested such a project, there are plenty of other wikis, message boards and newsgroups where they can choose to participate. Regarding the remarks of LMS: I'm a new 'ordinary user' here. As far as I'm concerned, the force of any comment he makes is in direct proportion to the strength of the arguments he uses to support said comment. -- STG

Should be in Republican/talk or media bias.

  Oh, and by the way LMS, at exactly what point in time did wikipedia be determined to be an encyclopedia? And by whom? I was under the misapprehension that it was a wiki run by Bomis.

'''There is a separate wiki run by Bomis, that is for Bomis. It is, like Bomis, heavily oriented to celebrities and goofy humor. It is interesting to note, though, that it has less participation (despite massively higher traffic!) than the Wikipedia. The reason seems obvious to me: this is a real community project with a central vision, while the Bomis wiki is just an addendum to a successful search engine site. :-) --Jimbo Wales

Well, since you ask, it was decided by Jimbo Wales, the president and CEO of Bomis, and myself. It was my idea, which I hammered away at Jimbo with for a week and a half, and then he finally gave in (only to be very pleasantly surprised!). The idea I got from in a conversation with my friend Ben Kovitz (who is a Ward's Wiki regular), to experiment with a wiki-format encyclopedia.

There are many other projects you can join that aren't encyclopedias, y'know.

Other matters that I regard to be basic to an encyclopedia--e.g., that bias shouldn't be included in Wikipedia--are just matters that I will do my best to try to enforce and persuade other people to enforce. They aren't, as far as I know, "official policy." On Wikipedia we don't have much of that. We do have opinionated people, though. --LMS

  And, finally, I was not aware that we had an Editor-In-chief here to begin with, much less one weeding out bias. The Campaign Against Covert Action is starring right at you, Sir. and asking you to be open in your actions here, to declare you intentions here, and not enter material here in the guise of a member, while, in fact, you are acting like a "boss.'

Nothing is stopping you, whoever you are, or anyone else from acting similarly! I wish you would. Why don't you? Be bold in updating pages. Disputes can always be handled on Talk pages. If you take me to be your boss, that's too bad. You give me power I didn't ask for. Obviously, I have some very definite ideas about what I think is and is not appropriate for this wiki. I'm not about to say that certain elements of policy are written in stone. But I won't be afraid to use my leverage, however it might be based (sheer force of personality, I like to think), to persuade people to adopt certain broad policies I personally support (see RulesToConsider, for example; see especially the first "rule").

Of course, there are plenty of policies on which reasonable people can disagree, and I can and do have no trouble at all with the thought that competing, inconsistent policies might lead to an inconsistently formatted and executed encyclopedia. --LMS

Frankly, in my 20-some years of political activism, I was completely unaware of a "tradition" to call republican presidents stupid. I have always viewed presidents as smart, brilliant, stupid or neutral based on where I perceived their policies to be leading.

Has anyone noticed the often disjointed and internally self-contradictory manner in which the current administration seems to be expressing itself so far? What's with that?

I haven't noticed that but actual legislation passed, executive actions taken, and judical appointments will be the telling factor.

As far as raw IQ, each of our presidents have to be high on the scale. Whether or not their initiatives work out is another thing.

Maybe it's just me, but I always try to remind myself that my perception - whatever it may be - of a current executive administration is incredibly biased by whichever form of media I have viewed it through and that said media has deleted much information that would be useful in making a fair judgement of the situation. This is in their own interests, obviously (advertisement time, owner's political leanings, reporter's bias, etc). Many factors come together to present the tainted information. So, our view of Republicans as stupid, a Democrat as a blithering idiot, or Ralph Nader as a kook would seem to be compromised. Sure, one could be egotistical and state that he/she has all the information and has it 100% correct and untainted. How honest could that statement be? Thus, their opinion would be invalidated that much more.

Such inherent incorrectness is what bores me about politics. Regular-Expressions are so much more interesting, thence I go. --Invictus

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