Talk:Mitt Romney dog incident

ASPCA guidelines with regard to crating duration and distress

Azrel has just made yet another tendentious edit. I added this:

ASPCA states that "an adult dog can be crated for as long as eight hours on occasion." They also say "don’t crate your dog if you see signs of anxiety when she’s crated, such as … urination or defection in the crate."

References

Azrel removed that, with the following comment: "Selective quoting of the source. NPOV violation. There is no evidence that the result was because of anxiety like you wold suggest."

Trouble is, it is not my POV that "the result was because of anxiety." That POV is what is stated by ASPCA. It is ASPCA, not me, which lists "urination or defection in the crate" as one of several "signs of anxiety when she’s crated." ASPCA is expressing this expert view: urination or defection in the crate should be considered a sign of anxiety.

This is an expert view that is highly relevant to a reader's evaluation of the matter, and it should not be removed. According to ASPCA, it was wrong to put the dog back in the crate after noticing "urination or defection in the crate."

Likewise for their expert view regarding the matter of duration. Everyone here and elsewhere is focused on the fact that the dog is on top of a car moving down a highway. This is obviously an important fact, but another more basic fact is being ignored: the dog was in the crate for much too long, even if the crate had been sitting in a quiet room.

ASCPA expressed the expert view that a dog should not be in a crate for more than 8 hours. We are appropriately citing experts expressing their view regarding whether or not a dog should be transported on top of a car. It is a problem that we are ignoring something more basic: expert views regarding whether or not a dog should be in a crate for 12-15 hours, regardless of the location of the crate. Jukeboxgrad (talk) 07:53, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

ASPCA is not expressing expert views as to the maximum time dogs can be crated; they are expressing conservative views. In other words, if you follow their guidelines, you are safe from any possible claims of maltreatment. If you don't, then you're on your own, but it's not even prima facia grounds for a claim of maltreatment. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:14, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I think that the content should be included in the article text, but there may be a problem with wp:synthesis. I.e, we would need a source which ties the ASPCA view specifically to the Romney case. El duderino ^(abides) 08:24, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

That, also. Even if ASPCA views were expert, we would need a source which would tie the expert views at the time with the incident, even if a present source. Current expert views are irrelevant. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:27, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Synthesis is "[combining] material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion." I believe what I wrote is not synthesis because it does not necessarily imply a conclusion. What I wrote is relevant information that can be used to support either conclusion. A reader might say this: '12 exceeds 8, so Romney did something wrong,' but they could also say this: '12 exceeds 8, but not by much, especially taking into account that the ASPCA would be inclined to lean in a certain direction; therefore there's no problem here.' (The fact that I personally believe the former isn't relevant, because I didn't express that in what I wrote.) I think it's helpful for a reader to know that the ASPCA number is not, say, 1, or 100. They can decide for themselves what the number tells them about this incident.

"ASPCA is not expressing expert views as to the maximum time dogs can be crated; they are expressing conservative views."

No, they are expressing a maximum. I didn't mention that they also said this: "But during the day, neither puppies nor adult dogs should be crated for more than four or five hours at a time." They also said "Maximum time in crate" for dogs older than 17 weeks is "4–5 hours." I omitted that and only mentioned this: "an adult dog can be crated for as long as eight hours on occasion." So they are indeed presenting 8 as a maximum, and "4-5 hours" as a more conservative view.

"Current expert views are irrelevant."

No, they're not irrelevant. Yes, an expert view from 1983 would be more relevant, but that doesn't make a current expert view irrelevant (especially if it's the best expert view that's available, or the only expert view). Especially since there is no evidence of a radical cultural shift on such things, between 1983 and now. It was 1983, not 1883. I see no reason to believe that the text I cited wasn't written a long time, or that it couldn't have been written in 1983. Also, Romney isn't taking this position: 'it was OK to do it back then, but it's something that shouldn't be done now.' He's taking the position that it was OK to do it then, and it would still be OK to do such a thing now. One of the major problems with what he's doing is that he's now encouraging people to believe that doing such a thing is OK now. This is another reason why a current expert view is quite relevant.

Readers of this article are naturally wondering about this key question: 'how long is it OK to keep a dog in a crate?' As far as I can tell, everyone but me is expressing (or implying) opinions about that, without citing any sources to support that opinion. If you can find a better source, then we should include it. Jukeboxgrad (talk) 13:39, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Look, this is textbook synthesis. We cannot compare the recommendation to the situation ourselves, and nor can we just sort of sit them side by side and let people work it out themselves ("we report, you decide"). Any comparison must have been explicitly carried out by a secondary party and ideally then cited to a secondary source commenting on that party. When that happens, feel free to reintroduce the material. Until then it has no place in the article. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:11, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Have to agree with others including CC here. This is irrelevant to the article unless some other RS considers it relevant (in which case we can discuss whether to include it) Nil Einne (talk) 05:27, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Jukeboxgrad, comments like this. "Azrel has just made yet another tendentious edit. I added this:" are uncalled for. Arzel (talk) 14:45, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

You said this to me: "Seriously, GET OVER IT." And to someone else you said this: "What a load of BS, you simply want to get that website out there so you can use it to promote a political point of view." Therefore I think you're in a poor position to make a judgment about what is "uncalled for."

There's just one thing about what I wrote that was uncalled for: I misspelled your name. Sorry about that. Jukeboxgrad (talk) 15:35, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

The ASPCA info should be kept out unless it can be shown that it was widely available in 1983.Zaggs (talk) 05:06, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, dogs are routinely crated for transport - see airline rules, and the fact that many single flights are well over 8 hours, with low air pressure in the pressurized cargo areas. [1]. Cheers. This story is past its sell-by date. Collect (talk) 12:15, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

WP:SYNTH, since you are forgetting the only source for the story and speculating as to what did happen based on nothing. The Romney kids were remarking on how Mitt would not make pit stops when THEY asked for them, but was always attentive to whatever Anne wanted. Or Seamus. They did not say there were NO pit stops, nor that Seamus was not let out along the way.--209.6.69.227 (talk) 15:20, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Mr. 209.6, do you think they pull the plane over and let the dogs out? Anyway, back on point, it does appear to represent a bit of OR to place a quote from a primary source into the article as commentary on how well Seamus was treated. We can't edit the article right now anyway, but whenever admins decide to allow editing again, it should be sourced not to a primary source, but a reliable secondary source if it is to be related to this article. Thanks. -- Avanu (talk) 15:48, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Collect:

"dogs are routinely crated for transport"

Not for a period of 12-15 hours. And responsible dog owners do not put their dog in a cargo hold, period. ASPCA says this: "Unless your animal is small enough to fit under your seat and you can bring him or her in the cabin, the ASPCA recommends pet owners to not fly their animal." (Google ASPCA Air Travel Tips.)

"many single flights are well over 8 hours"

The citation you offered says nothing to support this claim. Also, the relevant number is 12 (at least), not 8. Also, I am aware of no authority which says it's OK to crate a dog for more than 8 hours. On an airplane, on top of a car, or anywhere else. The site you cited does not say it's OK crate a dog for over 8 hours, either in or out of an airplane. So I don't know why you implied that it did.

209:

"The Romney kids were remarking on how Mitt would not make pit stops when THEY asked for them, but was always attentive to whatever Anne wanted. Or Seamus."

This is a nice example of "speculating as to what did happen based on nothing." There is no statement from "the Romney kids" indicating that Mitt "was always attentive to whatever [Seamus] wanted." Your last two words ("Or Seamus") have no basis in any statement made by "the Romney kids." Jukeboxgrad (talk) 15:11, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Category: animal rights

I added a link to Category:Animal rights. This category includes many incidents of alleged animal rights violations (e.g., Primate experiments at Columbia University). Debbie W. 04:32, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

There is no evidence of a violation of animal rights with regard to this story. This is really going too far. Arzel (talk) 04:35, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

That's a matter of opinion, and being in this category does not mean that something is a violation of animal rights, just that it's a controversy within the realm of animal rights. Read the primate experiments at Columbia University article, which documents a case where clearly no laws were broken. A lot of people would not consider the Columbia case an animal rights violation, but some people did, and so it's included in the animal rights category. The same is true here. Some people consider the Seamus incident an animal rights violation, and some don't. Debbie W. 04:45, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

That is an entirely different situation. You have animals that are being used for experimental drug testing. Looking at the entries into that list they are a much different class of incidents. The Michael Vick incident is much more severe and not included in that category. Arzel (talk) 04:59, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Note, I had to refractor your initial edit because you added the talk page to the category by doing so. Arzel (talk) 05:07, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Arzel, I did some research, and you are correct. The correct category is not Category:animal rights, but Category:animal cruelty incidents. The Michael Vick incident, and many less severe cases are included in that category. The category states, '"Articles pertaining to individual incidents that have been described by sources as involving cruelty to animals. Please note that pages here do not necessarily involve actual animal cruelty in the legal definition of the word. Rather, they are pages that deal with the subject of animal cruelty and the associated controversies."' Debbie W. 05:44, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I question whether this is an actual animal cruelty event. I would like some additional input. Arzel (talk) 06:02, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Category:Animal rights is plausible; Category:Animal cruelty incidents is a clear WP:BLP violation. No potentially reliable source, except one columnist misquoting his sources, has said it was a cruelty incident. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:17, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

It is ridiculously clear that this is an animal rights issue, even if it isn't "proven" that Romney violated the rights of an animal. It is exactly because he treated an animal the way he did that this is an issue; if it had been a rock, his luggage or a plant no one would raise an eyebrow. SÆdon^talk 07:05, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Actaully noone really cared until he ran for president, ergo, the only reason it is an issue is because he is a presidential candidate. One wonders why it wasn't an issue when he was govenor....Arzel (talk) 15:11, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

"One wonders why it wasn't an issue when he was govenor"

Romney was governor from 1/2/03 until 1/4/07. The story of Seamus on the roof was not reported to the public until 6/27/07. The story came out because a family friend mentioned it to a reporter. Hopefully that solves the puzzle of "why it wasn't an issue when he was govenor."

"the only reason it is an issue is because he is a presidential candidate"

The reason it's an issue is because he's a public figure. There would be a similar reaction if a famous non-politician had done this. I have already explained this elsewhere on this page. Jukeboxgrad (talk) 18:59, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Then why did it disapear after the 2008 primaries? Arzel (talk) 19:49, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

It disappeared because Romney didn't run for office between 2008 and 2010. If Romney had say hypothetically run for governor or senator between the two presidential elections, then the issue would have been publicized. If you're are a public figure, you'll be under a lot more scrutiny. Bill Clinton can have as many sexual affairs as he wants now, and it probably won't make the news because he's no longer President. Debbie W. 20:39, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Just to emphasize what Debbie said: a story like this has interest because it's about a public figure, and it's going to be in the news to the extent that the person himself is in the news. This is true regardless of the person's field: politics, sports, entertainment, whatever. This story is in the news right now because Romney himself is in the news right now. "After the 2008 primaries," not so much. Jukeboxgrad (talk) 21:31, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

If this is an animal cruelty issue, please show the negative effect to the dog. According to the Romney's the diarrhea was caused by turkey. Also there seems to be the idea it was 12 straight hours, in one drive, no stops, with kids. I highly doubt this. Zaggs (talk) 05:13, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Archives

Debbie, what exactly are you doing with the archives? If you continue on this path (assuming the page is not deleted) we will have a long list of archive links, some of which are minor. Why not just archive via the standard archive method? Arzel (talk) 03:14, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Arzel, It's a topical archive. Wikipedia allows for either a chronological archive, or a topical archive. Personally, I prefer a topical archive as it makes old discussions easier to find. Wikipedia:How_to_archive_a_page#Detailed_explanation Debbie W. 03:31, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

You should also make chronological archives, so that threads appear both chronologically and topically. It'd make reviewing them easier depending on why you want to read old archives. 70.49.124.225 (talk) 04:08, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• conduct vs. content - To be irritating (as may be my habit? heh - people seem to think the poll I set up immediately above is a bit): I think we should tend to question in specific a single fellow editor or group of fellow editors with suspicion about who edited (commented/&c.) what, when, where, how not on the article's talkpage but (if necessary) (1) on each others' talkpages, if we've good enough mutual rapport, or else, especially if not (2) on certain of WP's many applicable bulletin board pages. So, instead of saying, "Arzel! WTF?" or "Debbie, what--in--the--heck?" we would simply say, addressing nobody in particular, "Hey, do you other editors think we should choose ____x option____ or ___y option___?" (Although I may not make a lot of sense. Been up all night.)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 11:52, 30 April 2012 (UTC) [Strike comment.]--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 11:56, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Titling and organizing an archive by an editor's name "Material removed by Arzel" seems nasty at best. North8000 (talk) 21:05, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

As requested, I added a chronological archive. Debbie W. 11:33, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, can you now delete the links to the "topical" archive. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:39, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

This page is blatant political smear.

WP:NOTFORUM SÆdontalk 20:49, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
This page is blatant political smear. This incident is no more notable than the controversy over Obama eating dogs and writing about it fondly in his autobiography, but leftist editors ensured that page was deleted. Where is the "bitter clinger" page? Where is the "I was never proud of America until they nominated Barack" page? Where is the "I can be more flexible with America's security after the election" page? Disgraceful, but pretty much par for the course. Leftist editors own wikipedia and ensure any propaganda against conservatives is preserved and anything detrimental to liberals is suppressed (see Glenn Greenwald sockpuppet incident, repeatedly scrubbed by leftists). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.65.173.151 (talk) 02:36, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Administrators' noticeboard discussion

There is discussion going on about the Seamus article at the administrators' noticeboard Debbie W. 02:48, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

The histories of this article and the Obama Eats Dogs article proves that there is no liberal bias on Wikipedia.

WP:NOTFORUM SÆdontalk 20:47, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
No left-wing bias at all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama_Eats_Dogs_meme The NYT wrote about Seamus a bunch, so it's notable. Obama eating dogs got enough traction that Obama joked about it to defuse it, but that doesn't make it notable; just enough support to mention it at the very end this article, I guess. Glad things are so NPOV around here. William Jockusch (talk) 05:40, 3 May 2012 (UTC) If there wasn't a liberal bias on Wikipedia and in the news media, this article wouldn't exist. (Whether or not the previous comment was sarcastic.) 06:40, 3 May 2012 (UTC) Never mind, per WP:TROLL. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:47, 3 May 2012 (UTC) I agree, only a troll would bring up the possibility of left-wing bias on Wikipedia. After all, the policies clearly state that we are NPOV. William Jockusch (talk) 14:04, 3 May 2012 (UTC) Whether there is left-wing bias on Wikipedia in general may be relevant to blogs, but it's not relevant to this article. Let's reserve the "Talk" discussion for issues that actually pertain to this article, please. Your thoughts on whether an encyclopedia such as Wiki should retitle or move this article (as discussed in point 9 above) would be relevant here; general political views about Wiki are not. -- AyaK (talk) 19:56, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 3 May 2012

Since the Diane Sawyer interview of Mitt Romney on April 16, 2012, this article has been subject to repeated vandalism by unregistered users. I am requesting semi-protection for one week. Debbie W. 12:23, 3 May 2012 (UTC) Debbie W. 12:23, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

For this request to be granted you need so clear evidence of vandalism. For example, this edit which you tagged as vandalism is not vandalism. Arzel (talk) 13:30, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

 Not done: requests for increases to the page protection level should be made at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. elektrikSHOOS (talk) 16:02, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Now that the AfD is over...

As pointed out, this article needs cleanup to become a more neutral tone. We're not here to help people attack or protect Romney, we're here to present a neutral telling of the situation.

As such, I've removed the SuperPAC references entirely, because without analysis, it presents the implication that there is a massive groundswell grassroots movement around this incident. This isn't NPOV.

Also, I've removed the part about Gail Collins for much the same reason. So she mentions Romney 50 times... where is our secondary source analysis of that?

And finally, the two animal cruelty databases that list Romney. Essentially the same problem. It is an attack without analysis. What research do these databases do? Who can add material? Are the listings reviewed after they are added? etc etc. In other words, is this a legitimate addition that was placed in the database for legitimate reasons, or is it simply a political attack? Its just my opinion, but looking at the two sites, Pet-Abuse.com looks more like a legitimate website and Inhumane.org looks like someone's grandkid knocked it up in their spare time. But either way, if we are going to add contentious material about a Living Person or if we are going to place non-neutral material in an article, i.e. "Romney is cruel and unfit as a pet owner", then we need a WP:RS reliable, secondary source analysis of this, not just adding it because it 'rounds out' the story of alleged cruelty. -- Avanu (talk) 15:07, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Agree. I recommended "delete" but think we should move on. A big part of the overall situation is what Romney's opponents did with the story. Wikipedia should cover that rather than participate in that. North8000 (talk) 16:50, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

In regard Gail Collins, we can't demand secondary sources as to the significance of aspects of the article, or we wouldn't have an article. In addition to the Washington Post article used as a reference, the PoliFacts article in the external links refers to her "obsession" with the subject. If that is reliable, she should definitely have a presence in the article. As I said in the move discussion above, she may be among the most notable aspects of the subject. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:07, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Avanu, I agree with your decision to remove the sentence about the non-attended protest, and I am ambivalent about the removal of information about Gail Collins. However, I disagree with the removal of the section on the super PACs, and the sentence about the animal cruelty databases. The super PACs were covered by the Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg News, while the databases were discussed in a New York Observer article. These are reliable sources. The concern about balance of coverage came up during the recent AfD for this article, and one of the other editors (Saedon) made an excellent comment: "Neutrality does not mean attaining a false balance, it means representing sources in proportion to their prominence. If RSs treat a subject negatively then our article will seem negative, the same holds true when coverage is positive."

If there are super PACs which have been set up to defend Romney regarding his 1983 road trip, then we should include them in this article. But the lack of existance of such organizations does not mean that the two super PACs that currently exist should be removed from the article. If you look at , you will see that 60 super PACs, many of whom have a limited impact, have their own Wikipedia page. I'm not suggesting that the super PACs which you removed should have their own page, just that they should be mentioned on this page because they are connected to the Seamus issue.

The same thing goes with the animal cruelty registries. One database was founded in 1986 (inhumane.org), and the other one (pet-abuse.com) about ten years ago. They are privately-run organizations (not law enforcement), but from what I've read, many animal shelters and pet stores use the database to screen out unsuitable customers. I agree with your goal of eliminating any bias from this article, but removing well-sourced and relevant information is not the way to do it. Debbie W. 18:42, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Since those two organization do not have any authority we can not give the illusion that their opinion is that important. What some animal shelters do with their information is of little value. It would be like me creating a website that tracks bad businesses, which other businesses then use to determine who they do business with. Then list my website on the WP of a "bad" business saying that my private "bad business" registry says that they are bad. Arzel (talk) 19:49, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Agreed with Av and Az. If we get some serious secondary coverage of these issues then we can give them some WP:WEIGHT but without analysis there are too many possible interpretations that we as editors can not properly put in context. SÆdon^talk 20:59, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I restored the super PAC info, but reduced it to one sentence. The old verbiage gave undue weight to the super PACs, describing their whole agenda in detail. Now I just mention that two super PAC, which were created in response to the Seamus incident, exist. HHIAdm (talk) 01:10, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

My rant

The main point that needs to be remembered is we don't include something in the article just because it casually relates to this story. Much of the tidbits in this story are presented as standalone nothings.

SuperPACs: For example, these two SuperPACs were mentioned, and as we see in the political race this season, SuperPACs play a HUGE role (for example, Mitt Romney's SuperPAC had $6.45 million at the end of March 2012 FEC ref). Stephen Colbert has widely publicized the influence that SuperPACs can have in elections by creating his own actual, but somewhat satirical, SuperPAC (link). In addition, he has shown that registering a SuperPAC with the FEC only requires a simple one page form (link).

So let's compare what Romney's SuperPAC has raised to what "Mitt is Mean" (FEC ref) and "DogPAC" (FEC ref) had brought in by March 2012. If you just followed those links, you will see ZERO. So the question is, what is the rationale for inclusion in this article for something that requires filling out a single sheet of paper, and has raised zero dollars?

The super PACS had just been founded as of the March 1 FEC reporting deadline, so I wouldn't expect them to report anything. I don't believe that we should have the extensive coverage of the super PACs that we previously had, with them having their own section and detailed description of their agenda. However, I think that we need to acknowledge their existance, so I eliminated the Super PAC section, and just have one sentence in the political section about them.HHIAdm (talk) 12:55, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Cruelty Databases: We need to ask ourselves similar questions when we look at the two animal cruelty databases. How does someone add material to these databases? Who reviews the material for accuracy? Did these two agencies follow the same process they normally do when they received the information on Mitt Romney, which was essentially copied from a newspaper article? PetAbuse has an online form for submitting cases (link). It states "Due to legal liability, we cannot consider adding any cases in which the requirements shown below are not provided. We MUST have court documentation ID numbers OR at least one media reference that we can verify." It does not state what steps are taken to ensure the accuracy of the information and the database currently has 18,819 cases listed. (By the way, looking through the lists will make your stomach turn and your heart pound much more, I think, than the Mitt Romney tale. There are some seriously messed up people in our world.) Inhumane.org works using a similar process; they claim over 20,000 cases and approximately 4,000 pending to be added. But emotional responses aside, the bar is obviously very very low for entry into these databases. The information about Mitt Romney is not in question, however, the characterization of Mitt being such a foul person that he is in NOT ONE, BUT TWO animal cruelty databases is not a reasonable characterization.

Gail Collins: Moving on, the article states that "Gail Collins had mentioned the car trip more than 50 times." OK, so what? This doesn't tell the reader much at all. It does not explain, why, how it was mentioned, the impact or potential impact of her mentioning it; it is merely a standalone fact that has been given no context, even being so vague as to be called "Supplementary Information". The same could be said about the mention of Seamus' nickname being mentioned. The reader should be asking 'Why does it matter? How does this relate to the story?'

Gail Collins should be mentioned because she is one of the people heavily responsible for the development of this story. Even though her actions are excessive, she is a notable journalist who writes for a major newspaper who heavily wrote about this story. It is relevant. HHIAdm (talk) 12:55, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

PETA: Let's continue and look at the opening a little where we quote PETA saying how it was "animal cruelty" and "torture". Who is the person saying this? Her name is Ingrid Newkirk. For sake of balance, let's see if she said anything else....

Quoting from Salon.com - Mommy Wars give way to Doggy Wars in Twitterverse

Interestingly, one person who doesn’t seem to take it too seriously is the president of PETA, or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

“As an individual, it irritates me when there is any talk of anything that doesn’t settle on the core issues,” said Ingrid Newkirk, stressing that she was speaking for herself. “And if we want to talk about treatment of animals in this country,” she added, “there are far more serious issues to talk about.” (my underlining there)

OK, so as 'official' spokesperson she says its horrible, but as Ingrid, she says this isn't really a serious discussion topic. Should we include the fullness of her statements on this? YOU FREAKING BET WE SHOULD. But have we? No.

In Closing: It is about being responsible, people. Even if you disagree with Romney on this issue, the article is in a crappy state and needs some SERIOUS review and less partisan "crap editing".

I can keep going, but I think you get the point. Either edit this thing in a responsible manner or go edit something else. I personally agree with what many of the commenters said in the Salon article, including Ingrid Newkirk. This issue is not worth our time considering there are legitimate and serious issues facing the United States. However, that won't stop me from making sure that we all follow a reasonable course here. End of rant. -- Avanu (talk) 05:39, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

There are areas in this article that can be improved, but compared to many articles that I have seen, this article is not in such crappy shape. It has a lot of references, and quotes people with differering opinion. HHIAdm (talk) 14:55, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

In regard Gail, I believe that she was responsible for keeping the issue alive until Newt ran with it. I can't yet find a reliable source to that effect, but she needs to be kept here if a reliable source is to be found. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:07, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I also think Gail Collins should be included - on a quick look, here's a secondary source discussing her keeping this story going. I believe I also read a secondary source connecting her coverage to Gingrich's use of the story, but I am not sure where. Will look too. Tvoz/talk 07:30, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

On a quick look, there is this one. Tvoz/talk 07:37, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't care whether or not these things are kept in the story. I care about the neutral presentation of the article. If we're going to have Gail Collins mentioned, it needs to have a basis, not just "some lady mentioned this a lot". And in looking at those two stories it seems clear that generally people find her behavior a bit obsessive and even problematic. From that NPR link, Dartmouth political science professor Brendan Nyhan said "But I do think it's representative of the way that the media focuses on trivia, things that are so inconsequential." In the PolitiFact article, they say "lest we be accused of utter frivolousness, we asked Swidey what aspects of Romney's biography might be more relevant to voters considering Romney for president." Point being, we have no mention of what impact she had, nor do we have how she is perceived by others because of this obsessive fixation on this story. -- Avanu (talk) 14:51, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I've spent some time reading articles about Seamus and PETA, and I'm okay with the sentence as it currently stands. PETA is highly critical of Romney's treatment of the dog, which is not a surprise considering the ideology of PETA. Read the following article which is on their website. I'm not sure of the context of Ms. Newkirk reply in the Salon article (i.e., what question did they ask her), and I think to commingle her personal opinion with her her organizational opinion is wrong. We quote her because of her official role, and PETA has officially criticized Romney. HHIAdm (talk) 14:55, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

So, despite the fact that she (and many others) believe this is pretty much a non-issue when compared with more serious issues that are also present, you believe we should only mention things that present a very biased attitude against the incident? -- Avanu (talk) 14:59, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

No, I believe that maintaining a neutral point of view requires that we don't take quotes out of context, or don't distort an organization's opinion. The material that you wish to add has no real context, in that I'm not sure what Salon asked Ingrid Newkirk. More importantly, to add it would give the impression that PETA does not really care about this issue. I will tell you that I am no supporter of PETA, but they very much care about this issue. The Seamus issue is on their website.HHIAdm (talk) 15:49, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Not the point. Obviously they care. The point is are we presenting a legitimate representation of how much they care, and where actual opinion sits? The same woman characterizing it in very strident language such as "torture" also said that personally there are bigger fish to fry (not that she would fry fish, being a PETA person). This sentiment lines up with a lot of other comments in the media and to present this as it has been is not a realistic view. -- Avanu (talk) 17:13, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Previous deletion discussion templates

I was just wondering -- is there a way to note at the top of this Talk page that the article was deleted by speedy deletion, prior to the deletion review? Right now it looks rather confusing: "Huh? What did they vote to overturn -- the article hadn't been nominated for deletion yet." I don't think you should have to go to the deletion review discussion just to figure out what happened. Theoldsparkle (talk) 17:02, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Test case - can we do better?

I weighed in for "delete" on this. I thought of saying "keep", thinking, OK it's a joke what has been made of this in the US, but then, it it has gotten big, maybe Wikipedia will provide a place to find out the real scoop. Then I came to my senses and remembered, no, Wikipedia is a failure on all controversial articles. Either one band one band of wikilawyer warriors tag teams to prevail and uses policies such as wp:npov to POV the article, or if there is a balance of wikilawyer warriors, then the article is just a mess.

Is it possible to resolve to to better here? Being a narrower / simpler subject, possibly it would be a good place to try. Good facts, good sourced analysis of the whole thing. Recognizing that a big part of this story isn't the dog on the roof, it's what people & media etc. have done with it. And so real coverage woudl also inclde coverage of that. North8000 (talk) 20:42, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

WP:NOTFORUM

I plan on taking a somewhat aggressive approach regarding SPAs posting drive-by forum style posts. I already closed two above, and I'm hoping that you all will join me in quickly closing similar discussions in the future. If you don't know how to do it, you can use the {{hat}} template at the top of the discussion like so: {{hat|reason=[[WP:NOTFORUM]] ~~~~}}. Then at the bottom of the post add the {{hab}} template. Keeping things on the topic of improving the article will keep the atmosphere here much calmer. Thanks! SÆdon^talk 20:55, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I fully support this strategy. Debbie W. 21:32, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

2012 White House Correspondents Dinner - Obama's jokes

The reference to 2012 White House Correspondents' Dinner included Obama making a joke about "We have all agreed that families are off-limits. Dogs are apparently fair game." This is correctly sourced/cited.

To give context to his "Dogs are apparently fair game.", I'm simply noting that Obama, at the same sourced and cited event, made jokes about the revelations he once ate Dog as a child. Obama jokes that dogs are fair game because both political parties, including himself, are using them.

The event and Obama's comments were allowed to be cited, I'm simply clarifying the context of his remarks. ChaseRocker (talk) 21:29, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

ChaseRocker, We previously discussed the Obama dog eating issue, and decided not to include it in this article. It's a separate issue. See Talk:Seamus_(dog)/Obama_eats_dog. Debbie W. 21:55, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

No such decision was made. Not sure how you can argue to include all of the political aspects of the Seamus political attack and rationally argue that the response is unrelated. Arzel (talk) 22:00, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

At the end of those discussions there were no good objections to the points that I and others had raised regarding the response from the right being a red herring and so WP:SILENCE applies. Nonetheless this appears to be a different matter entirely; it's not about the response from the right, but rather a comment from Obama. SÆdon^talk 22:04, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

An AfD decided that the Obama Eats Dogs article should be deleted, not merged. While the comment from Obama came after the creation of the Obama Eats Dogs article, this seems like an attempt to import the OED material into this article. Additionally, I'm not sure how we include this material without the existance of the OED article, or some other article in Wikipedia to explain what OED is. Debbie W. 22:26, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I think the difference now is that Obama himself has commented on the issue. One of the big problems before was that the Obama situation was brought up by rightist commentators in order to distract from the Seamus incident. I'm not sure how I feel about this addition one way or the other, I'll have to think about it. SÆdon^talk 21:56, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Just because it was decided an article about Obama Eats Dogs should not exist, that doesn't mean all mention of it should be excised from all articles, especially when President Obama connected his eating of dog meat with Seamus at the White House Correspondents Dinner. A mention, particularly just a phrase, of the connection appears appropriate here. If more information about OED is necessary, it can be included in a footnote. 72Dino (talk) 22:33, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Simply absurd. You cannot have a political reaction section and not have the corresponding retort from the right regarding Obama eating dog. Arzel (talk) 23:05, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Please reread all the arguments made against your position by me the last time we had this discussion. As was pointed out, the response from the right was a red herring that only attempted to distract from the issue at hand. While the right is free to use as many logical fallacies as they want in order to convince people to vote for their candidates, we as a serious encyclopedia cannot republish logical fallacies and act as though they are not. What Obama did is a separate issue in its entirety. I'm OK with the aforementioned addition because Obama opened the door himself, but we're not going to start including the stuff that, for instance, Kelly tried to add a few weeks ago. SÆdon^talk 23:09, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Really? This whole issue about Romney is a red herring by the left and somehow Obama is immune from the same? Arzel (talk) 03:38, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the White House Correspondents Dinner comments by Obama were allowed. His comments of "Dogs are apparently fair game" were allowed. His comments can ONLY be seen in the context of the political discussion and his own jokes about himself having eaten a dog meat. Why does he joke about Dogs being fair game? Because of the dog stories in the political arena about Romney and himself. He made jokes about himself too, not just Romney. Before he even showed the Seamus video, he joked about himself. In order to keep with NPOV...the entire context should be given. Unless there's still disagreement, I will add that reference back in. ChaseRocker (talk) 23:23, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't object. As I said above, it's an entirely different context than republishing logical fallacies. This is kind of like a "as an aside, when the president commented here is what he said" kind of thing. It doesn't strike me as a BLP problem, nor do I feel it is undue and honestly it's kind of funny :). SÆdon^talk 23:26, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I'm adding it back for context. What I find even more amusing, aside from all the jokes, is the attempt by some to wipe any talk of Obama Eating a dog from the political discussion, despite Obama himself talking about it on numerous occasions. Just because you try and erase it from Wikipedia or hide it in an archive isn't gonna erase the event from history. Obama is on tape/vid talking about it. Stop trying to rewrite history, ppl. ChaseRocker (talk) 23:35, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Ugh, look, Obama eating dog as part of a very normal practice in Indonesia as a six year old is not relevant to an article about Mitt Romney doing something to a dog in 1983. They are completely separate topics and have nothing to do with each other. This isn't an article about people and their dogs, it's about one particular dog and one particular person. If we're going to include a section about this then we should also include a section about the time I accidentally spilled grease on my dog while I was cooking some eggs as an adolescent; it is equally relevant. Please read over the discussions on this subject in the archives. SÆdon^talk 00:50, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Not sure where you came up with that statement, other than it is a red hering being used to excuse what he did. The consumption of dog meat is not common in Indonesia. Dog meat is considered haram by Muslims, and with over 85% of Indonesia being Muslim it is not common. Our own article here on the subject states as much. Arzel (talk) 03:36, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Thaks, Arzel. Here's a quote from the above Wikilink:

...dog meat is usually associated with the Minahasa, an ethnic group in northern Sulawesi, and Bataks of northern Sumatra, who consider dog meat to be a festive dish....---WIKIPEDIA

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 03:57, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Azrel, I do not need to excuse what Obama did as a 6 year old, you are focusing on the wrong aspect of my argument and perhaps I should not even have mentioned the social acceptability of dog consumption, so my apologies for misleading you unintentionally. Even if it was not a socially acceptable practice to eat dog in Indonesia (which it is, as HSG pointed out; as an aside I have spent a large portion of my life in the East and it is not an alien concept to me in the least), the crux of my argument is that an article with the very specific scope of a dog named Seamus, his owner Mitt Romney and the controversy surrounding their reaction has nothing to do with an unnamed dog being consumed at a much earlier date by an entirely different man. Let me try to make this more clear: if a news report came out tomorrow stated that Obama had killed and mutilated 500 dogs in a ritualistic satanic sacrifice, it would still have absolutely nothing to do with this article. This article is not about dogs in the 2012 election - again, it is about one dog, one man, and their interaction. The crux of the conservative response has been akin to "Oh yeah? Well Obama hurt a dog too!," which is not actually about the subject at hand. SÆdon^talk 08:10, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Do you accept that this is a political article, making a political talking point? If you do not than what is the point of all the political responses? Arzel (talk) 13:17, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

No, of course I do not accept that. This is an article in an encyclopedia about a political controversy, that doesn't make it a "political article." We're not here to push a POV, we're here to report about a controversy - a controversy that is not about something Obama did as a child, but rather about one particular man and one particular dog. SÆdon^talk 20:09, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm against any part of Obama's comments at the White House Correspondents Dinner being part of this article. The issue is not bias, but encyclopedic quality. Jokes told at a dinner by the President add nothing of substance to this article, and are not meant for an encyclopedia. HHIAdm (talk) 00:56, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Saedon, I've read all the discussion by ppl who want to keep any mention of Obama eating a Dog from showing up anywhere in Wikipedia. Trust me, your bias doesn't go unnoticed. But the fact is, the WHCD remarks by Obama were added AND accepted. He remarked about Dogs being fair game in the context of making fun of Himself and Romney. That is a fact. You cannot include Obama's comments without context. To do so is POV and wrong.

CR, you're going to be cut a bit of slack here because you're new, but I'm going to tell you right now that comments such as "Trust me, your bias doesn't go unnoticed" are inappropriate on WP. They may fly on forums across the internet, but if you make accusations on WP you need to be able to support them with strong evidence; repeated violations of this policy can lead to topic bans or blocks. You also couldn't be more wrong; I am probably the most neutral editor currently dealing with this page, and I'm sure that other editors here would agree that I've annoyed both those on the right and the left (which is a good sign that I'm neutral). For your own edification, please know the following about me: I do not vote, I think politics is a boring subject, I have no opinion whatsoever on who should be the next president (or congressman, senator, etc). I really just don't care, but what I do care about is building an awesome encyclopedia. So here are your options: if you think I am editing in a biased manner you should file a report at WP:ANI and request a block or a topic ban, OR, you should never again mention that I am editing in a biased manner.

Now, onto the topic at hand. Despite your misinterpretation of my statements above that obviously agree with your position that the aforementioned context of Obama's statements is topically relevant...actually I have no "but" there, I agree with you completely. Obama's response to the matter is in my opinion relevant, and I have no objections whatsoever to the edit you introduced and I never objected in the first place. How's that for bias? SÆdon^talk 07:49, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

HHIAdm, You say, "The issue is not about bias". You know that's wrong. People here are not only trying to keep the Obama eating a dog incident from this article, but from anywhere in Wikipedia. That IS bias. ChaseRocker (talk) 01:49, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Considering that this incident has been made a political football, and if Romney gets the GOP nomination, Obama will be his direct opponent, it is completely noteworthy and correct to include Obama's joke about "Dogs are apparently fair game." In fact, Obama is making the same point that many editors have been making here. BOTH of these stories are ridiculous political fodder. Neither of the stories deserve the attention they are getting, and neither of the stories are going to matter in any serious way to determine the outcome of this election.

In reality, the irony here is that the stories are so overhyped that they are almost a joke. And so Obama tells his joke, admittedly to make his tale less serious, but also to make the valid point that we actually could be talking about serious problems.

Why should we do that when being stupid is so much easier....? -- Avanu (talk) 06:09, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

UNDUE tag

What is this tag referring to specifically? SÆdon^talk 23:14, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

It might help if you read my [2] summary when I put it up. Or you could probably figure it out since there is only one issue really being discussed. Arzel (talk) 13:29, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Considering that you didn't add an UNDUE tag it wouldn't make much sense to look at your edit summary. SÆdon^talk 20:04, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Obama Eating a Dog

To clear up confusion. Is there consensus that Obama Eating a Dog when he was young is not to be included here even though it was brought up in response to the 30 yr old story about Romney and his dog? And is there consensus that Obama Eating a Dog should not be a separate Wiki article? ChaseRocker (talk) 01:58, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

And this article was brought up in response to Romneys rise in Republican politics. The reasons behind both articles are nothing more than American political fodder.69.60.103.171 (talk) 03:25, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

ChaseRocker, There previously was an article Obama Eats Dogs. It was subject to a AfD which determined that the article should be deleted -- see WP:Articles for deletion/Obama Eats Dogs.

There was a consensus to not have the subject as a standalone article (the second question by ChaseRocker). As far as the first question, there is not a consensus that I can see for not briefly mentioning the OED subject at all when the president himself referred to both OED and Seamus (linking both topics) at the WHCD, which has now been deleted even though referenced and having much coverage. 72Dino (talk) 02:26, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I still don't understand how Romney's trip with his dog over 20 years ago gets its own Wikipedia page when it made the news, yet Obama eating dog meat doesn't get it's own page when it also makes the news NOR is it even allowed to be mentioned in relevant articles, such as Audacity of Hope. Wikipedia isn't supposed to be a"protect Obama and attack Romney" website. It's supposed to be a site for housing notable information. JettaMann (talk) 17:41, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I see no rational choice but to include a sentence about other dogs in this hunt. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:04, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Which would make sense if this article was about dogs, and not one specific dog and an incident in which he was involved in 1983. Yes, the right would like to deflect the attention Romney is getting over this onto Obama because he's the president and thus an easy target, but as an encyclopedia we should be smarter than to fall for the red herring and feed out readers a logical fallacy. Further, the situations aren't even comparable. Romney was a grown man who made a conscious decision to transport a dog in a way that many people feel is unethical; Obama ate dog meat as a 6 year old in an area where it is not socially taboo. Aside from the fact that both situations include dogs, they are incomparable. Unless our article on oranges has a section describing apples we shouldn't do the same thing here. SÆdon^talk 22:11, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Missing coverage on the largest aspect

This obviously isn't just about the dog, it's about what has happened with it. Including "who gave this story legs, and why?" This aspect is completely missing from the article. I was one of others who put up the POV tag which folks have been working at warring out, and that was the reason I gave in the edit summary. The "reason" given for removal after my placement was apparently that the given reason was in the edit summary rather then the talk page. So here it is. North8000 (talk) 11:52, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

NPOV Tag - (Added NPOV tag with the censorship of the Obama dog eating meme which is a response to this meme.)

I find it very distressing that editors remove the NPOV tag when it is abundantely clear why I put up in the first place. Apparently my edit summary is too abstract for concise understanding. So let me say it again. (Added NPOV tag with the censorship of the Obama dog eating meme which is a response to this meme.) I find it simply amazing that you have several editors using WP to push this political story on WP and refusing to even acknowledge the political response. This is going to be a very painful election year indeed. Arzel (talk) 13:26, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

So it looks like there are multiple reasons for the tag. North8000 (talk) 13:37, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Here is a source making the connection. Arzel (talk) 14:32, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that you have failed thus far in explaining what is neutral about including unrelated statements about an entirely different person who is has nothing to do with this incident. As I have pointed out so many times now: the fact that the right has committed a logical fallacy in that they pointed to Obama to deflect attention from something Romney did does not actually mean that the incidents are related, it just means that those conservatives who have problems with logic will be persuaded to parrot the argument without ever realizing it doesn't make sense. I understand why this is: what Romney did is indefensible in the eyes of a lot of people, and rather than try to justify it it's easier to just change the subject and hope people will focus on something else instead. Fortunately WP is not the place where we change the subject like that.

Anyway, the more I think about this the more I start to think that it's a BLP issue, and so I will probably just raise the issue at WP:BLPN and see what they have to say. SÆdon^talk 20:27, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Repeated from above: Considering that this incident has been made a political football, and if Romney gets the GOP nomination, Obama will be his direct opponent, it is completely noteworthy and correct to include Obama's joke about "Dogs are apparently fair game." In fact, Obama is making the same point that many editors have been making here. BOTH of these stories are ridiculous political fodder. Neither of the stories deserve the attention they are getting, and neither of the stories are going to matter in any serious way to determine the outcome of this election.

In reality, the irony here is that the stories are so overhyped that they are almost a joke. And so Obama tells his joke, admittedly to make his tale less serious, but also to make the valid point that we actually could be talking about serious problems. A reasonably small mention is appropriate for this article. -- Avanu (talk) 20:40, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Av, I have no problem with that addition, I have said so explicitly at least three times above. What I'm talking about here is regarding not the WHCD but the conservative red herring sourced to some less than logical commentators. SÆdon^talk 20:51, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I shall open my eyes better. :) And yes, in this article, we don't need unreliable commentators or a long expose of Obama's dog eating or the commentary on it. -- Avanu (talk) 21:07, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

You took the words right out of my mouth. SÆdon^talk 21:09, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

BLP...Really? Under what line of reasoning would you invoke BLP on this when Obama himself is making jokes about it. Did you even read my source??? My guess is not. To save your some clicking here you go.

On Monday morning, MSNBC's First Read noted that Obama had seized on the Saturday dinner as an opportunity to bring up Seamus. "Yes, Obama made fun of himself and eating dog, but they'll take that to get the Seamus story mainlined; They've been trying for months." You betcha.

*** A way to bring up Seamus: Don’t overlook the fact that the White House used the opportunity of the White House Correspondents Dinner -- when they knew they’d get lighter coverage for what they did – put a story that they’ve struggled to put into the mainstream, quietly trying to do for months, the Seamus story. It was frankly a way to get Seamus out there. Yes, Obama made fun of himself and eating dog, but they’ll take that to get the Seamus story mainlined; They’ve been trying for months.

Please explain to me again how they are completely unrelated. Arzel (talk) 22:44, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Azrel, perhaps you and I are having a different conversation. I will say now, again, for maybe the 7th or 8th time that I have no problem with the WHCD info being in there. I never opposed it to begin with. There is not that much opposition to it, so much so that I don't doubt that at this point we have close enough to consensus to include it. I oppose the following: having a section, a la Kelly's version, discussing Jim Hawkins' (and his ilk's) Chewbacca defense. I have been under the impression that that is what you and North would like included. I have been under this impression because I don't know why you would argue with me about the WHCD stuff when I didn't oppose it in the first place. SÆdon^talk 22:54, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Saedon, I am opposed to the inclusion of comments regarding Obama eating dog on the grounds that the AfD deleted Obama Eats Dogs for lack of notability. Hypothetically, let's say there was an article about a given person or event which was not notable, and that article was deleted. It would be in violation of Wikipedia policy to turn around and then add that material to another article. I've seen this issue before, particularly with Wikipedia pages for colleges, where people who are not notable add their name to the famous alumni section of the page of their alma mater. It's completely illegitimate.

I'm not convinced that the comments at the WHCD make the dog-eating notable, if the original week of publicity about the meme did not make it notable. There was far less news coverage of Obama's comments about dog-eating than there was about Jim Treacher's original 'Obama Eats Dog' story. Furthermore, the WHCD was discussed three times during the AfD, and the decision was still to delete. Can anyone show me another case where an article was deleted (not merged) by AfD, and then the material from the deleted article was subsequently added to a different article? Debbie W. 05:18, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Debbie, please see WP:NOTABLE#Notability_guidelines_do_not_limit_content_within_an_article. Notability doesn't apply to article content, it only applies to whether a topic is worthy of its own article. SÆdon^talk 20:57, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not knowledgeable or opinionated on this. My post is in the previous section and my note here is that this makes it multiple reasons for the POV tag. North8000 (talk) 23:29, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• Comment - As always any additions to the encyclopedia--separate article or detail supplied to an existing one--must be according to the standard wp:EDITing and CONTENT (wp:RS, etc.) guidelines. What particular contribution is being proposed? If we think it can stand on its own merits within the context, in particular, of this article, then it can stay; otherwise, not.

  In any case, an AfD consensus for a merger of the Obama/dogmeat meme stand-alone article to shoehorn it in entirety into say the Obama 2012 campaign article would have presented issues of UNDUE or the like. So any "merge" result was out by basic logic and hence no consensus materialized to support that option; but a procedural argument to disallow mention of this meme/controversy here ITSELF is be opposed to accepted WP procedures, in this instance. Only a consensus on this talkpage holds sway--since there was no consensus in the AfD in favor of nor opposed to mere mention of the youthful happenstance/alleged indiscretion outside of a stand-alone treatment. (Heck, one can even recreate an article already deleted, if one wants--as long as the new material is backed up by better sourcing, etc., than the one that was deleted, or if one can convincingly demonstrate that new events, or overlooked circumstances, or whatever, now hold sway (speaking entirely theoretically, of course).)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 07:37, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Keep in mind that using the POV-tag -- say, as a "badge of shame" -- is a common ploy of activist-minded editors who don't like an article's existence, especially those fighting for its deletion. 12.159.5.249 (talk) 21:32, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

"Supplementary information"

Ugh. This heading is awful. We might as well call it "A bunch of crap that doesn't fit anywhere else." And as far as I can see, the edit summary that created this heading (misspelled) has no mention of or justification for its creation, and there's nothing on this Talk page to explain it, either.

Can we move the Gail Collins sentence back to the "Political commentary" section and change "Supplementary information" back to "Later life"? Theoldsparkle (talk) 15:01, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Support this and moving Later life to below the incident section. Gobōnobo ^{+ c} 11:20, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. The supplementary info section violates WP:TRIVIA. Unless someone seriously objects, I think that we should move the Collins sentence to the political commentary section. Debbie W. 01:10, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Regardless of placement, the Gail Collins comment needs to say more than "she mentioned it 50 times", if it is to be included. It needs context or it needs to be snipped. -- Avanu (talk) 01:18, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

What sort of context do you want? I reluctant to add too much more about Ms. Collins, as it will cause the article to deviate off topic. Debbie W. 03:57, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

On the contrary, if, as seems to be the case, Ms. Collins is responsible for keeping the meme alive, she should be given more prominent placement. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 04:15, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Currently, the sentence reads, "As of March 2012, New York Times columnist Gail Collins had mentioned the car trip more than 50 times." What changes or additions are you proposing? Debbie W. 05:00, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

See the discussion above titled "My Rant" -- Avanu (talk) 04:53, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Avanu, Do you have a reliable source that states more about Gail Collins and Seamus, other than that she wrote 50 articles? Debbie W. 05:00, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

From WP:Verifiability, "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. .... It has always been good practice to try to find and cite supporting sources yourself. Do not leave unsourced or poorly sourced material in an article if it might damage the reputation of living people; ...." Point being, I'm telling you this sentence is inadaquate. It is biased and provides no context. Find a real source that talks about how this 'fact' relates to the story at large or leave it out. I've explained this over and over, and I'm not sure why you think that it is OK to add material without providing context for it being in the article. I could also say "Romney has had 5 dogs in his life." But how does that relate to this article? -- Avanu (talk) 05:09, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Biased??? It's a factual statement with a reference to a reliable source. It doesn't show any favortism to any one opinion, and it definitely doesn't damage anyone's reputation. I know of at least four other reliable sources (see below) that discuss Gail Collins fascination with Seamus, but I'm not sure why you find the current sentence so objectionable.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/08/gail-collins-mitt-romney-dog-seamus_n_1331625.html

http://www.observer.com/2011/12/dogged-times-op-ed-columnist-gail-collins-will-not-let-crate-gate-drop/

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/business/2011/12/gail-collins-will-not-stop-mentioning-romneys-dog-no-matter-what-you-say/46478/

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2011/12/20/144004616/why-is-times-columnist-gail-collins-so-obsessed-with-mitt-romneys-dog

Debbie W. 05:42, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Keyword was "might", not "will". Anyway, I've explained over and over that it is a standalone 'fact'. You don't seem to understand why this is a bad thing. Why don't we mention that Seamus ate Alpo food? Or that he was allergic to pears? I'm sure you can recognize why. So again, WHY IS IT IMPORTANT THAT GAIL MENTIONED THIS 50 TIMES? Answer that question and then you can leave it in the article because you have established a reason for it to be there. Fail to answer that question, and it should be left out. This is not rocket science. I've NEVER disputed that you can find reliable sources for this. What I have been repeatedly asking is for you to explain (via sources) WHY it should be mentioned. -- Avanu (talk) 06:00, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

We don't need a source that it's significant for inclusion in the article; it might be WP:UNDUE weight to include it, but even the raw fact is more relevant to both the dog and the controversy than the opinion of the presidents of the MSPCA and PETA. (Note, the opinion of the president of the MSPCA is now incorrectly attributed to the organization.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:16, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Yep, there are many problems with the article. I went on about it all in 'My Rant' above. -- Avanu (talk) 06:54, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Article deserves deletion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Recent AFD closed as keep. The WP:HORSEMEAT is about as tender as it's gonna get. SÆdon^talk 21:14, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

---

There is virtually no point in this article. Romney strapped Seamus to the top of his car. That is an incident blown out of political proportion that says NOTHING about his ability to govern. If this article is allowed to exist because you're upset about Romney being a potential candidate against Obama why don't you allow the Obama eats/ate dogs article?

This is obviously a pathetic political smear. I read the whole article wandering when the page would be over. Are you guys expecting us to laugh about the joke on how you ride with a dog in a car? What about the conservative counter-joke: it must have been a chilling memory for him to look a dog in the eye like that. Why is that joke missing from the article?

I find the dirty tactics you attempt only prove you're wrong.98.154.101.143 (talk) 22:09, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Please see "Article milestones" at the top of this page. It's been through 2 deletion discussion, one was last week. IOW: not gonna happen anytime soon. SÆdon^talk 22:20, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Mr. 98.154.... um yeah, 2 deletion discussions and one JUST ended. I agree with your points, but you need to drop it now. Thanks. -- Avanu (talk) 22:35, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

You are right that the incident has no relation to Romney's ability to govern and is a pathetic political smear. However that doesn't automatically mean it has to be deleted. The incident seems to have gained enough fame and recognition in the United States to be notable. Wikipedia has no political agenda, nor does it maintain any viewpoint about what is "right". JIP | Talk 07:24, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Edit protection

{{editprotected}}

1. Move Seamus (dog) to Seamus controversy or Seamus incident. Based on the discussion under Requested move section, just about everyone has reached a consensus that current name needs to changes, and of the suggestions, these two seem to have no objections. Titles containing the words "Mitt Romney" were also popular, but there were some concerns about BLP violations with these titles.

2. Move the sentence about Gail Collins in the "Supplementary information" section to the "Political commentary" section, and retitle "Supplementary information" as "Later life". Based on the Supplementary information section, everyone agrees that "supplementary information" is an inappropriate title for an article section.

3. Extend article protection for a few more days. I think that some of the other edit disputes could be resolved with a few more days of talking. HHIAdm (talk) 23:58, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I supported titles that had Romney's name in them but I am not adverse at all to any of the above propositions, they're all equally ok with me, no first choice. SÆdon^talk 00:00, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

HHIAdm, I'm not sure there's consensus for this new name of "Seamus incident". Sounds like a book title. Whatever happened to "common name"? Maybe the idea that there isn't a really common name other than "that thing where romney had his dog on his car" should tell people how standalone this article should be? -- Avanu (talk) 02:40, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Archiving

I set up archiving a week ago so there's no need to manually archive anymore (and I changed it from 20 to 10 days). As it stands it's incredibly annoying that archives aren't split according to custom (/archive_1, /archive_2, etc) and I'm probably going to do it manually eventually, but please don't make things worse! Thanks. SÆdon^talk 05:30, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Things to do

The article looks great, we have a new title, no weasel words, great attribution and incredibly well references. It was a pain in the ass by we managed to get it done.

So the question now is: what needs to be done to get this to GA status, and do you all think it's a good time to ask for a GA review? SÆdon^talk 05:32, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I think that asking for a GA review would be a good idea. I think that with the name change, the renaming of the supplementary info section, and the removal of the romney neologism section a few weks ago, this is much better article. Debbie W. 12:58, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Not a chance in hell is this going to be a GA, so you should just stop your attempt to push this liberal talking point into the 2012 election process right now. Arzel (talk) 13:32, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Just FYI to Debbie and Saedon. This article is hardly set up as a good article yet. I can tell that without much effort. It is a loose narrative of random mentions by various people. It lacks commentary from the majority, which seems to be 'yeah, who cares?' While a lot of people wouldn't personally do what Romney did, if you leave aside the obvious electioneering commentary, you are left with a lot of people saying it isn't great, but it isn't all that bad either.

In what you do have in the article, you leave out Ingrid from PETA saying its not a big deal compared to the real issues. You have an engineer and his veterinarian wife saying, 'maybe this or that', but no real evidence there, just implication, and we don't know why this particular couple weighed in or why they're in the article.

We have 2 comments from Mitt and his wife under "legal commentary", which is absolutely silly. Although Mitt Romney has a JD, he isn't a practicing attorney and since he is the guy at the center of this, it hardly makes sense to call his statements on it "legal commentary". Ann has a degree in French. Not sure how her statements qualify as legal commentary either.

Typical half-hearted Newt quote there; he almost never says anything concrete. The next quote about "how loving owners treat their dogs" should be followed up by the comment made from the political right on Obama's dog, but it isn't. This is the political section after all.

Mark Halperin opined it was serious for voters... in what way? How does he see this affecting the election? No mention of maybe women vs. men voters, no analysis whatsoever, just some guy saying some random quote.

Blah, I'm tired of dissecting this, but seriously, this isn't even close to a good article, we might not have weasel 'words', but we have a lot of weasely phrases and really a mucky soup of random quotes from the news. It is a crappy article. Give it a CA status. It could be fixed, it could be a good article, but it ain't that now. -- Avanu (talk) 15:34, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Mitt and Ann Romney's response is under legal commentary because they are commenting on the legality of the event, basically saying they did not violate any laws. I'm not sure how we can discern the "commentary from the majority" but I do think that we should try to find commentary from another politician defending Romney's actions. We already have Ann and Mitt Romney's defense of their actions, and we have journalist Ruth Marcus's comments, but all the other politicians who we cite are criticizing the 1983 road trip. We should see if there is a major politician who has come to Romney's defense. That would be the only real change that this article needs before we apply for GA status. Debbie W. 17:48, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I took another look at the Vet comments after reading above. The source doesn't actually say what she (the Vet) said, it says what Cummings says that she would say. It is quite a bit different. Cummings supposition about what his wife might say is not notable, not to mention the fact that she is an anonymous vet. If we are going to quote a vet's opinion, we should probably; (1) know who it is and (2) quote what they actually say, and not what their husband says that they might say. Arzel (talk) 18:15, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. Although a vet's comments would be useful, we cannot use a second-hand quote from an semi-anonymous person. Debbie W. 21:12, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Av, perhaps you're right. I think I was overzealous in ascribing pride to us all for a job well done prematurely. Still, I am proud of us, we've accomplished a lot in the past month or so. I will comment on specifics later; lots of stuff to do atm. SÆdon^talk 20:14, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Avanu:

"Mark Halperin opined it was serious for voters... in what way? How does he see this affecting the election? No mention of maybe women vs. men voters, no analysis whatsoever, just some guy saying some random quote."

The article already says this: "74% of Democrats, 66% of Independents, and 63% of Republicans consider it inhumane to put a family dog in a kennel on the roof of a car." And this: "35% of voters would be less likely to vote for Romney because of the Seamus incident."

We know you are not part of that 35%, but only someone choosing to ignore this data would suggest there is no reason to see this "affecting the election."

You said this elsewhere: "This issue is not worth our time considering there are legitimate and serious issues facing the United States."

Except that 35% of voters think this issue is sufficiently "legitimate and serious" to influence their vote. What you're doing is ignoring that data in favor of your own personal opinion regarding what's "legitimate and serious." Jukeboxgrad (talk) 15:47, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

NPOV - Obama eats dogs

Now that the page has been moved, and it is clear it is regarding the political aspects of the incident it is time to discuss how to incorporate some aspect of the Obama eating dogs political response to this political event. We already have a couple os sections discussing the Obama campaign use of this issue, it should be quite easy to incorporate some small section which illustrates the response to their attacks. We have sources that meet WP:RS, and it is a violation of WP:NPOV to not mention is at all as if it never even happened. Arzel (talk) 13:40, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure that we should incorporate the dog-eating issue into this article. The recent AfD decided that the material is not notable, and should be deleted (not merged). Contrary to some previous discussions on this Talk page, the White House Correspondents Dinner comments were discussed during the AfD. That being said, please describe the verbiage that you want to use if we are going to include this material. Debbie W. 15:14, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

That is not a genuine view of the AfD. I will put forth a proposal shortly. Arzel (talk) 18:07, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Please do. I think a lot of the bickering on this page can be traced to the lack of specific wording being introduced. If it's anything like Kelly's version I'm opposed, but it's theoretically possible to include something so long as it's not simply the Chewbacca defense. SÆdon^talk 20:13, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Rubbish attempt at diminishing the incident of dog abuse to a political attack by equating it to the Obama meme. Pro-Romney POV-pushers didn't get what they wanted at the AfD discussions so they continue pushing here. Shameless. 12.159.5.249 (talk) 21:24, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Requested move 2

Seamus incident → Mitt Romney dog incident – I'm not sure if opening a new move request discussion is the best way to handle this; if consensus seems to be that this is needlessly tedious or inflammatory, or that another process to reconsider the name should be used, I will withdraw. But I disagree that Seamus incident is a good title and that it had a consensus of support. (It is, however, a better title than Seamus (dog).) It looks to me like a title using Mitt Romney's name had the most support, but that a minority of users objected to using Mitt Romney's name, and because most people in favor of a title using his name didn't go out of their way to argue in support specifically of using his name, it was mistakenly perceived that everybody would be just as happy with NOT using his name. The problem with Seamus incident is that, I believe, very few people who are aware of this topic would identify it by the name of the dog, but virtually anyone who is aware of the topic would be able to identify it by reference to Mitt Romney's dog. Our article naming policy says: "the ideal article title will resemble titles for similar articles, precisely identify the subject, be short, be natural, and be recognizable." I don't agree that invoking the name "Seamus" meets these ideals anywhere near as well as the name "Mitt Romney" does. I also don't see any basis for claiming that using Romney's name would be any sort of BLP violation. While the debate over naming Campaign for "santorum" neologism obviously springs to mind (especially since the closer of the RM discussion here used the word "neologism" in his closing rationale despite absolutely nobody on either side of the actual discussion using that word), that topic bears little resemblance to this one, because that article is about a campaign, developed independently of Rick Santorum, seeking to associate his name with something disgusting, and this article is about something that Mitt Romney inarguably, undeniably did, and how people feel about it. A precedent that prevents us from titling articles about political incidents in a way that allows people to identify what the article is about would be a very bad convention to adopt. Theoldsparkle (talk) 16:04, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Oppose I've seen it done before, but I think using a politician's name and "incident" or "controversy" implies a problem caused by that politician, which is why I suggested that we don't include the name "Mitt Romney." For example, Wikipedia uses the terms Jeremiah Wright controversy, Lewinsky scandal, and Chappaquiddick incident, not Barack Obama religion controversy, Bill Clinton sex scandal, and Edward Kennedy driving incident. Although Obama, Clinton, and Kennedy are far more notable than Wright, Lewinsky, and Chappaquidick, these articles all avoid using the name of the politician. Debbie W.

One obvious rejoinder would be Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories. Also, it's not as if WP:BLP only applies to politicians; of the three examples you provide, two are titled with names of living people, so I don't see them as arguments against using Romney's name here. I haven't read whatever discussions led to the titles of those three articles, so I don't know what/whether competing arguments were made, but from my perspective, those three titles that were chosen all seem to meet our article-naming principles as well as, or even better than, the alternate titles you suggest could have been used. For example, Jeremiah Wright controversy seems to be at least as good a title as Barack Obama religion controversy, while Seamus incident is not as good as Mitt Romney dog incident, and therefore Jeremiah Wright controversy does not support that we should use an inferior title simply to avoid including a politician's name. Theoldsparkle (talk) 18:29, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

With the Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories article, the words 'incident', 'controversy', or 'scandal' are not used, and thus it doesn't imply that Obama did something wrong. It would be very different if it was called the Barack Obama birthplace controversy. You make a good point that Wikipedia's BLP policy covers all people, and that neither person associated with an incident should be subject to a POVTITLE. However, considering that he is deceased and non-human, Seamus isn't covered by BLP. There is one point of your argument that I do not understand -- why do you believe that Jeremiah Wright controversy is a good title, but Seamus incident is not? Obama is far better known that Wright, and give it about a decade, and Jeremiah Wright's name will be barely known. Debbie W. 11:04, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I understand that the name of a dead dog has nothing to do with our policies related to living persons; I'm not saying that the current title violates WP:BLP, just that the proposed title doesn't violate it, either. To answer your question, two points: I think Jeremiah Wright's name is much better known than Seamus' name, and much easier to associate with the topic of that article than Seamus' name is with the topic of this article. Also, your suggested alternate, Barack Obama religion controversy, would be poor because there have been multiple controversies related to Obama and religion; it could easily be referring to accusations that Obama's a secret Muslim. The fact that it uses Obama's name is not why we don't use that title, and the fact that my proposed title uses Romney's name is not a reason to avoid using that title. Theoldsparkle (talk) 18:23, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Oppose. I'd support a move to Gail Collins obsession, but Mitt Romney dog incident is too specific and too vague; too specific, because it's not really about Seamus or Mitt Romney, but about a political obsession with Mitt Romney, and too vague, because I'm sure Mitt has had more than one dog, and there have undoubtedly been "incidents" relating to more of them. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:38, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support. This is clearly more about Mitt Romney than about Seamus. People seem to be using this as a smear campaign towards Mitt Romney, the dog is just an innocent victim. If Mitt Romney weren't such a public figure this whole incident wouldn't perhaps be notable. JIP | Talk 20:02, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

• Totally neutral I'm ok with almost any title so long as said title refers to the controversy/incident and not the dog himself. SÆdon^talk 20:10, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support. "Seamus incident" is not recognizable, though it has been referred to by the name in some media sources. However, "Mitt Romney dog incident" makes everything clear and is a name accessible to readers. Colipon+(Talk) 00:53, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose Titles should be the subject. Let's stop messing with this. North8000 (talk) 11:07, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

• Strong support per Colipon; media sources won't use "Seamus incident" without appropriate context. Also support per JIP; this isn't really about the dog. --BDD (talk) 15:42, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

• Comment In case anyone else finds this interesting: According to [3], in April 2012, there were over 17,000 views for Seamus (dog). Yet Seamus only drew about 2,000 views, a fairly modest increase from the previous April, when it drew about 1,500 views. I believe this indicates that relatively few users interested in this topic associated it with the name "Seamus". Theoldsparkle (talk) 18:30, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what to make of the web traffic statistics. For example, in April 2012, there were 17,000 hits for the Seamus (dog) article, 600,000 hits for Mitt Romney, but only 5,400 hits for Public image of Mitt Romney. So, the "Mitt Romney" name is not necessarily a good generator of website hits. I'm not sure how users are finding this Wikipedia page, so I'm not sure what title would generate the most hits. Furthermore, while we want a common name that is easy for user to find, search engine optimization is not one of the criteria in naming an article. Debbie W. 21:15, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm assuming you misunderstood my point, because I really don't understand what you're talking about. My point is that, if this topic were widely known as "the Seamus incident" or otherwise associated with the name Seamus, a lot of the people seeking this topic would probably search for the term "Seamus". Since the pageviews indicate a lot of people seeking the topic, but relatively few people searching for the term "Seamus", that supports my belief that this topic is not widely known as "the Seamus incident" or similar. Theoldsparkle (talk) 22:05, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I understand what you are saying, but I'm not sure of exactly how users find this article. If people are coming to Wikipedia first, and then typing "Seamus" "Romney dog" or something like that in the Wikipedia search box, then your point is correct that low web traffic for the Seamus article is indicative of people not searching for the dog by the name "Seamus". However, I thinking that many users are getting to the article directly from Yahoo, Google, or other search engine. For example, if I type in just "Seamus" in Yahoo, the first hit is the Wikipedia Seamus article with the accent mark, and the third article is the one for the dog. A semi-intelligent user looking for the dog incident will go the Seamus dog article skipping the Seamus name article. Debbie W. 03:28, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I see what you mean now. You're right that we can't know for sure; I think the data we have indicates something, but I only mentioned it as a tertiary point. Theoldsparkle (talk) 14:38, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

• Comment This should be moved to something like "Romney and Obama dog controversy" and both should be mentioned. William Jockusch (talk) 21:31, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Support move to Mitt Romney dog incident. Like I said in the AFD and the first move request, the dog himself is NOT notable, but the fact that he was involved in an incident involving his notable owner Mitt Romney is. I doubt most people know the dog's name anyway and therefore would NOT look him up as such. TomCat4680 (talk) 06:39, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Animal infobox

My removal was not a case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT, which is only an essay, not a policy, and one about deletion rationales at that. When I said it was redundant, I meant it was redundant with the other infobox at the top of the article, not just with the other text in the article. If that's not a valid rationale, we should be creating infoboxes for every subsection of every article, to properly document everything. Seriously, when the infobox includes the text "Known for 1983 incident (see text)", when the title of the article is "Seamus incident", and there's an infobox also titled "Incident", I really do think it's a bit excessive. Also, WP:INFOBOX links to a Wikiproject, not a policy either, so there was not necessarily a valid reason to undo my edit. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 01:12, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree that perhaps the word "incident" is overused, but that is no reason to delete the infobox. I think that having both infoboxes makes sense. I will change the title of the first infobox to "event". Debbie W. 02:39, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Infoboxes aren't required on articles hence are but stylistic choices. That said, reader surveys indicate that a fairly large portion of readers scan such things as sidebars' text and image captions before deciding whether they'll dive into an article's main text. So all-in-all, I think infoboxes improve articles. (As for multiple infoboxes, they likewise are neither encouraged nor discouraged but I think, FWthat'sW, in the present case the two infofoxes, taken together, nicely encapsulate the focus of the article.)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:55, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't see a good reason to have the animal infobox. It seems misleading, regardless of what the article is about (which is still subject to edit wars controversy, it's not about the dog. If there was a way to minimize the infobox.... — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:28, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Keep the event infobox, but remove the dog infobox. The dog infobox only provides a place to put the picture. The information in the infobox is either self explanatory (species: dog, nation from: United States, Occupation: seriously?) or covered better in the prose of the article (breed: actually in the section heading, sex: importance?, owner: covered). Visually, the picture would look better in the article not an infobox, and the infobox just clutters the article.--kelapstick^(bainuu) 22:36, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Cmt (or neutral !vote): - I think the indiv. dog infobox is kinda "cute" but agree little is lost w its replacement by a standard captioned pic, fwiw.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 17:24, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Stephanopoulos column

George Stephanopoulos, who has close ties to Democratic Party heavyweights, wrote this back on April 19. He explicitly tied the Obama- eats-dog thing to the Seamus incident, and downplayed both. I suggest using this column in the article, and letting it guide coverage of the Obama-eats-dog meme. Cheers, CWC 15:14, 8 May 2012 (UTC) who is not putting this page on his watchlist

This article is not about Obama eating dog and the seamus incident, it's about one specific man and one specific dog. Even if someone talks about both things, the scope of our article does not include Obama's actions as a 6 year old. The Obama stuff is a WP:COATRACK plain and simple. SÆdon^talk 21:40, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Although I generally respect your work, it would be WP:UNDUE not to include Obama and the connections made by pundits and by Obama himself. I have doubts that that column is a reliable source, but I could be wrong. He is an expert, after all, so his columns might fall under WP:SPS, as it doesn't really seem to be about a living person (or a dead dog). — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:11, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Voting -- are the Seamus Incident and Obama dog-eating controversies related or not?

An editor has asserted that these two controversies are unrelated. Or perhaps it was an assertion that Jim Treacher's "roof of mouth" tweet was unrelated to this controversy. I'm requesting a vote on that question.

• Yes They have been treated jointly by many news reports, such as William Jockusch (talk) 21:45, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

References

Wikipedia is WP:NOTADEMOCRACY. We don't vote here. SÆdon^talk 21:49, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, some people appear to be asserting that Treacher's tweet was "not related" to political controversy about the Romney crating Seamus. I find this interesting, in light of the articles I've found relating them. Perhaps those editors merely failed to notice those articles? Even more interesting, apparently David Axelrod's tweet is related, as it has been around without challenge. — Preceding unsigned comment added by William Jockusch (talk • contribs) 22:01, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

We vote, sure enough, it's just that those votes don't necessarily determine any outcomes. Wikipedia isn't a democracy, but it's thoroughly democratic. --BDD (talk) 23:10, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

• Definitely related and relevant. (Note: The key is "relevance"; any two concepts can be related within 6 links....) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:07, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Obviously related, definitely not relevant anymore than mine or your dog habits are relevant. If we're going to include information about what other people have done with dogs this article is going to get really long, really fast. But of course this article isn't about dogs in general, or dogs in the 2012 presidential election, it's about a dog named Seamus and his owner Mitt Romney. And don't forget that Chewbacca is a wookie. SÆdon^talk 22:15, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, then why is Axelrod's tweet about Bo related, but Treacher's tweet not? Is there some difference I'm missing?William Jockusch (talk) 22:18, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Honestly I don't even want to talk about it anymore. I was typing up a response to this and I realized that I've repeated my points on this page so much over the past month that I must be annoying some folks here at least half as much as I'm annoyed by having to retype it. If you all really can't see that the Hawkins' stuff is a coatrack and an offense to logic I don't think I'll be able to convince you. Looking back over my contribs I'm happy with what I've helped to accomplish here and I wish you all the best of luck. I'll come check out the article in a couple months and see what kind of progress you've made. SÆdon^talk 22:32, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

• No unless you get caught up in horse race journalism. Romney has a controversial incident involving a dog in his past, so some journalists are going to try to draw equivalence with one in Obama's. That doesn't mean both issues don't pass WP:N (they do), but in terms of substance, there is no connection between how the Romneys transported their pet and how a boy Obama ate dog meat in a foreign country. They're no more related than the Whitewater controversy and other political scandals involving real estate, or the 2002 New Hampshire Senate election phone jamming scandal and Watergate. Obama ate dog as a child, and this would be fine to mention on Wikipedia, but it would belong in Dreams from My Father#Controversy or some such section. To assert that the controversies are substantially related is absurd. --BDD (talk) 23:10, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
• Absolutely not I am tired of dealing with this subject, but an AfD decided that the Obama Eats Dogs material should be deleted. During the AfD, there was a proposal to merge it with this article, but the proposal was rejected. The White House Correspondents Dinner comments were discussed during the AfD, and yet the decision was still delete. If you don't like the decision, go to deletion review. Debbie W.

Well, even leaving that aside, does any of the no voters want to defend the proposition that the Axelrod tweet is germane to this article, but the Treacher tweet is not? 98.222.48.17 William Jockusch (talk) 00:20, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

William, A similiar format does not equal similiar relevance. Just because Axelrod tweeted something doesn't mean that anything tweeted belongs in this article. Here's my final advice on this topic -- (a) open a deletion review for Obama Eats Dogs, and propose that OED be merged with the article; or (b) find someone who defends Romney without discussing dog eating, and add it to the article. Debbie W. 01:13, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

The dog-eating "incident" is highly relevant to this "incident", regardless of the fact that neither is particularly relevant to Romney or Obama. Now, because of the deletion, we probably can not use the specific wording from Obama Eats Dogs without violating copyright, but we can certainly use any reference from that article to support the connection. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:37, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Debbie, the question of whether the Obama Incident is relevant is not the same as the question of whether the Axelrod and Treacher tweets have similar levels of relevance. Just as the Axelrod tweet was relating the subject of this article to the fact that Bo rides with Obama, the Treacher tweet was relating the subject of this article to the fact that Obama has eaten dogs. So I'll ask again -- do you have any support for the notion that one is relevant, but the other not? William Jockusch (talk) 02:09, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

• Absolutely There is no logical reason to claim otherwise. Arzel (talk) 02:32, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
• No there is no logical connection between the two, one is eating something, the other is owning a pet. Is someone going to suggest that eating beef and carrying a dog on the roof of your car is related next? What's up with all this complaints about eating dog (a mammalian meat)? Most Americans eat beef (a mammalian meat), so what's the problem? 70.49.124.225 (talk) 04:19, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
• Onviously No, no logical nor factual connection with the seamus incident. As far as I can see, this is only a reprisal against the outcome in the "Obama eat dog" AfD (in which I didn't voted), and in such cases the proper procedure is opening a deletion review about the AfD. Cavarrone (talk) 09:17, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
• No: Totally irrelevant political sniping at Obama in retaliation for deletion of anti-Obama article. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 09:21, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

• Related Of course they are. Their only context is the political maneuvers in the context of the election Obama vs. Romney. North8000 (talk) 10:20, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
• Definitely related. The Obama dog-eating stuff was the Romney camp's response to the Obama camp pushing the Seamus meme. Plenty of sources link the two. Kelly ^hi! 11:58, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

• Note Since Obama himself made a joke about it, it is completely absurd to claim they are unrelated.

Aides to Obama and Romney traded jocular tweets about their

bosses' attitudes toward dogs for days until the president himself took up the issue at the April 28 White House Correspondents' dinner, an occasion presidents traditionally use to mock themselves (and others). Riffing off a famous sound bite from Sarah Palin, Republican candidate for vice president in 2008, Obama asked: "What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull?" A pit bull is delicious." Particularly with soy sauce.

Arzel (talk) 15:46, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Starting this section for anyone who wants to assert that it is appropriate to include Axelrod's tweet but not Treacher's.

Seems absurd to me; how can you include a notable tweet from the Obama camp "This is how loving pet owners transport their dogs" without including the response from a Romeny supporter. Note that this is not the same as the above question. At any rate, if you want to defend that proposition, here is the place. William Jockusch (talk) 15:19, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I see the response to this has been to remove both tweets from the article. The problem I have with that is that the Axelrod tweet has been around, unchallenged. So now that the equivalence is pointed out, you want to have your cake and eat it too? — Preceding unsigned comment added by William Jockusch (talk • contribs) 16:48, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

There seems no doubt as to the equivalence; but tweets, even by notable people, are still tweets. I'm generally opposed to including them. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:34, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

MSPCA and PETA

I don't see why the opinions of the presidents of the Massachusetts SPCA (although our article presently attributes it to the association) and PETA are relevant to this article. They certainly don't fit in the "legal" or "scientific" opinion section, as there is no evidence the speakers are lawyers or scientists. I think, perhaps, those statements should be moved to the "political" section. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:23, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Agree. And PETA is so far fringe/nutty that news reports cover what they say only as entertaining comedy North8000 (talk) 23:23, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

This is called "legal" commentary because they are discussing the legality of the 1983 road trip. SPCA and PETA and well-known animal rights organizations (the former being more mainstream), so we quote them. We also quote Mitt Romney and Ann Romney defending the legality off the trip. Debbie W. 02:05, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

What they have to do with "legal"? And in Peta's case, about 1/3 of the coverage of them is when they are breaking laws to pursue their agendas. On the first you may be mixing up ASPCA (national org with similar problems as PETA but not quite as bad) and the local organization quoted in the article. North8000 (talk) 10:29, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

While I agree with you that PETA has its own issues, they are listed because they are commenting on the legal issues of the incident. If some other group comes out and his differering comments about the 1983 road trip, we will add them. Debbie W. 12:56, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Misc.

• Mr. Personality wasn't Seamus's "nickname," per se. Swidey's interview material w Jane Robinson does not say Seamus had the nickname Mr. Personality; rather it says that "this dog was mister personality" as a figure of speech. By way of comparison, she also terms him "a Houdini." LINK--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 17:45, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
• @Animal infobox: per Politicker LINK, Jane married in the 1950s and her surname is Robinson.Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 21:13, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

OK Jane owned the dog when she was Robinson nee Romney and--if she owned it after the incident, that is--after she was again (divorcee) "Jane Romney"(?)--Ben Smith link--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 21:47, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Mark Halperin, in his 2007 tome, The Undecided Voter's Guide to the Next President, names Jane "Jane Romney Robinson." LINK--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:24, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

• Dr. Robinson:

  "we took care of Seamus, a beautiful, magnificent dog. We had three other dogs of our own, but we had an acre of property overlooking the American River, so we had lots of land to take care of these dogs and for them to roam around in"---(Quoted by Hunter Walker in-- ) Politicker (link above)

  --Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:06, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

As an actress, Jane got roles c. 1987 in The Young and the Restless and Capital. Sacramento Bee LINK

A Jane Romney was in an episode of Days of Our Lives in 1993. IMDb--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 17:17, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Co-wrote/performed adaptation of the Brownings' correspondence ["How do I love thee? Let me count the ways" &c.] April 25, 2008 Washington, Penn. Oberserver-Reporter--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:04, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

"Jerry Brown, California's former two-term governor, was sworn in as mayor Monday.... Brown's star quality lured some out-of-town fans, among them Jane Romney, an actress, writer and daughter of former Michigan Gov. George Romney, a one-time Republican presidential candidate."---January 4, 1999 S.F.Examiner--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 17:45, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Bruce Hinckley Robinson's father, O. Preston Robinson, was "a former professor of marketing and retailing at New York University and at the University of Utah, where he was also chairman of the Department of Retailing...." LINK

Here is the blurb from the back jacket from a tome by Bruce H. Robinson, published in 2007:Biomedicine: A Textbook for Practitioners of Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine:

Bruce [Edited: Hinckley] Robinson was a board-certified surgeon. Graduating with high honors from the Univ. of Mich. School of Med. [Edited: in 1962], he completed another five years of post-graduate internship and residency at the university and a research fellowship at St. Bartholomew's Med. Coll. in London. During his 30 years medical and surgical practice, Bruce treated over 80,000 patients. Now that he is no longer in practice, he has dedicated his professional career to bridging the gap between Western medicine and Chinese medicine. ... ... He serves on the board of dir.s of the Nat'l Board of Internal Medicine for Acupuncturists and Acupuncture and the Acupuncture and Integrated Med. Coll. in Berkeley...."

The book is dedicated to his [new?] wife "Jayne." Page 11 eulogizes his father, Preston. A 2009 book by the same author is Western Physical Exam Skills for Practitioners of Asian Medicine.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 01:18, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

The changes look good. Debbie W. 00:49, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Am I the only one who has no real idea why any of this is relevant to the "Seamus incident"? Is it all supposed to be about figuring out the proper name for Mitt's sister? Theoldsparkle (talk) 19:07, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Research has an odd habit of leading down unsuspected avenues. (Heaven forbid! I know, I know, what is most popular on WP is to spend hours of time arguing points that could perhaps be settled by a few seconds' use of Google; however, above indeed is a short paragraph reporting the actual results of a handful of such very quick searches. My sincere hope is that readers may be able to recover from such a shock.) In any case, the answer is essentially--perhaps I should say largelly, in the affirmative; i.e., yes (1) the mister personality item's w/rgd that phrase formerly w/in Seamus's bio section, followed by (2) research into Mitt's sister Jane's present surname [as an actress she went by Romney but in some books she is credited as Robinson], interspersed with (3) info about Bruce Robinson incl. his joint-caretaking/ownership of Seamus, this in rdg to the article's animal infobox text that previously noted but Jane.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 21:24, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Imagine

If all the energy put into this talk page on this silly article was applied equally to rest of WP.