Talk:Political gaffe/Archive 1

Archive 1

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Purpose

Many BLP articles have too much stress on gaffes made. This article was created to lump them all together for comparision and balance.--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:39, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

It's an interesting concept for an article but you may run into a problem regarding what to include. Notability is hard to determine for political gaffes because they are played up during an election and then many times forgotten. For instance, Dan Quayle and Bill Clinton both have gaffes that beat the test of time, but there's little way for us to know what gaffes will survive from the current generation of politics. I could also see how this topic could become unmanageably large due to gaffes across the world. Not sure what the solution there will be, perhaps splitting into articles by country. Anyway, good luck, I'll be watching the development of the article with interest. SÆdon^talk 21:44, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Oh and don't forget sourcing. I'm assuming you'll add sourcing later but as of right now there's nothing. SÆdon^talk 21:46, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

I also wonder if the concept of a political gaffe is per se a notabletopic as opposed to specific gaffes being notable. SÆdon^talk 21:49, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

• I can think of a few gaffes by topic. That early report of buried miners alive when then weren't. Attacking Iraq on the 'smoking gun' evidence gaffe, etc, etc. I think wikilinks to the ones that have articles that are sourced don't need sources here. As soon as we get at least one for UK we should be able to remove the construction tag. I don't know which they would consider memorable.--Canoe1967 (talk) 23:10, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

What would you think about renaming the page to List of political gaffes? In an article with the title Political gaffes I would expect to read about the concept of political gaffe itself (e.g. history, etymology, etc), not a reference of gaffes that have occurred. Btw, when I brought up sourcing earlier I was referring to the definition itself. SÆdon^talk 23:13, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good to me to turn the bottom half into a list. I don't know what the best sources would be for the article itself. I don't own any political science textbooks but there must be many that we can source.--Canoe1967 (talk) 23:21, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Bad idea in the making

I've tossed this up for deletion, sorry. All it is ever going to be is a magnet for every two-bit and halfwit criticism throughout history. How long will it be til w get edit wars over "Obama says there's 57 states" or "Bush doesn't know the fool me once... saying" ? Tarc (talk) 13:24, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Keep -- give us a chance, man. So far, it looks pretty NPOV. It might be worth limiting it to gaffes that are at least n years old, though.William Jockusch (talk) 03:21, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

This article is possibly one of the worst I've seen on Wikipedia... open flame/war-bait, list masquerading as an article, questionable/subjective inclusion criteria, etc... This would be much better served by a category, whereby we tag gaffe articles that have notability/sourcing necessary to stand on their own. //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 22:01, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree. I doubt the article could stand on its own, being just a wicktionary article. A category would be less POV than a list as well. I think that will be the consensus on the deletion page.--Canoe1967 (talk) 00:07, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Mitt Romney dog incident

Worthy of inclusion? Thoughts?--Canoe1967 (talk) 04:53, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

• No, it is not a "gaffe".--Cavarrone (talk) 11:53, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
• I agree. I will resolve this section for now. If anyone wants to open dicussion again they can remove the tag or start a new section.--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:07, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Resolved

Well this is a disappointment...

I took a look at this article, and boy was I disappointed. This is a HUGE term in politics, and deserves quite the extensive article. Right now, we've a page full of half a dozen poorly sourced gaffes, including an unencyclopaedic header on the "gaffes by country" section. I'll try and give this a major overhaul if I get the chance, but this seriously needs some work. Any idea on how to advertise an article to get help improving it? Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 03:30, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Gaffes by type

I think that the Taxonomy of Gaffes article might be a good beginning point on doing a substantive discussion about gaffes by type. Not just examples, but a real discussion of the differences. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 14:59, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree, there is discussion in the header of segregating gaffes into different types, but it is never actually broken down. I think this would be the strongest outline for the page. The current listing of gaffes has no place here. Examples of different kind of gaffes are the only reason I can see to list any at all. The Taxonomy of Gaffes from the New York Magazine is a great place to start. I don't expect scholarly sources to be found in this area. 2:50, 09 October 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.252.173.77 (talk)

Where was the merger discussion?

As far as I can tell, the merger of the Political gaffe article with Kinsley gaffe was accomplished as a fait accompli and without any notice to any of the contributors of that article. I am not taking a position on whether there should have been a merger. But I am surprised by the method. In my experience, mergers of articles are always discussed first. This isn't the way you do it. See Wikipedia:Merging. This should have been discussed first before the merger 7&6=thirteen (☎) 12:29, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Loss of Kinsley gaffe talk page

As far as I can tell, the merger of the Political gaffe article with Kinsley gaffe was accomplished as a fait accompli and without any notice to any of the contributors of that article. I am not taking a position on whether there should have been a merger. But I am surprised by the method. In my experience, mergers of articles are always discussed first. I note from your talk page that this isn't the way you do it. See Wikipedia:Merging. This should have been discussed first before the merger

If there was anything on the Kinsley gaffe talk page, you've lost it now. The redirect simply comes to the Political Gaffe Talk page. "There is neither history of content" "There is neither history nor content" This was badly done. it needs to be corrected by you. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 10:45, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

• Be bold applies here, and a little flavor of ignore all rules. It seemed like such an obvious thing to do that I just did it. I was searching Google for content to use to improve the political gaffe article, make it more than a list, and one of the first Google results was Kinsley gaffe, which was neither linked to nor even mentioned in the political gaffe article. The Kinsley gaffe article, it turns out, had exactly the content I was looking to add to political gaffe (namely that some gaffes reveal what politicians really think.) As far as I know, there is no explicit requirement to discuss anything first, except for most (but not even all) deletions. You should never revert or demand someone undo something unless you actually disagree with the action - lack of discussion alone is never reason to undo an edit.

You second paragraph confuses me. The Kinsley gaffe talk page is at Talk:Kinsley gaffe, as anyone would naturally expect, and I created it when I placed the {{merged-to}} tag (there was no talk page before that). I have no idea what you mean when you say it's "lost". There are no redirects to the Political Gaffe talk page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Talk:Political_gaffe). "There is neither history of content" "There is neither history nor content" doesn't even make any sense. The history is here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kinsley_gaffe&action=history and the content has been moved to political gaffe. Since none of your claims that the merge was badly done make any sense to me, I will not correct anything until I understand what to correct. Ego White Tray (talk) 12:35, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I was not demanding that you do anything, other than put in the history (at least) of the talk page (and it still has evaporated, as far as I can see). Nor did I revert or undo. If you are correct that there was no talk page at Kinsley Gaffe, then I withdraw the request. No harm, no foul.

I clicked on your redirect to the talk page, and all I get is the Political Gaffe talk page. I have taken the liberty of cleaning up my typographical error. "There is neither history of content" "There is neither history nor content" is the way that should read. Sorry about that. If there was no talk page, then see above.

I thought that as the primary contributor to Kinsley Gaffe I should have been informed before the merger. Of course, since this is the only substance in the Political gaffe article, I am not surprised (but am also flattered) that you would decide it was 'just what your new article needed.'

While your merger was admirably bold, it crossed the practical line. Mergers should always be discussed before the merger. That's the way it is done in practice. See Wikipedia:Merging and

Main page: Help:Merging § Proposing a merger

.

Apparently there is nothing for you to correct. But I respectfully suggest that other known editors deserve a say on whether articles should be moved or merged. A radical operation should at least be discussed with the family; otherwise other editors will misinterpret your actions as arrogance.

Of course, I WP:AGF. But seduction is always preferable to the alternatives. Process and the implicit respect it entails is important in a project where we are all volunteers. What was the hurry or overriding consideration. Is this just an Ipse dixit?

Indeed, bottom line, merging these was probably an OK thing to do. But an amendment of future behavior is something I recommend to you. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 13:10, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Resolved

I left a note on the talk page as well as formatting these two sections into one.--Canoe1967 (talk) 05:38, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Memorable Gaffes by country section

An utterly non-encyclopedic section that is really just a coatrack way to list non-notable or non-context events. No sourcing or anything helpful to back up that these are more "memorable", if anything it is just what happens to be more recent. If anything, it needs to be trimmed only to gaffes that have their own page.--Yaksar (let's chat) 17:59, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Unsurprisingly, trimming it down to only gaffes afforded their own page leaves very few. The article is much better served by discussing the topic and mentioning cases in context as they show up, rather than having a section that is based on what an editor may have an opinion is a particularly "memorable" one (especially since there are a few hundred gaffes reported every single month, as far as I can tell).--Yaksar (let's chat) 18:05, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Everything does not need its own article. That is not the test of notability. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 16:45, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Should we add this one?

• Thoughts?

As a new one came out yesterday (5/6/2016) some of you may have thoughts on whether to add it or not. FWIW UK Politics - Conservative Party leadership election after the recent vote to leave the European Union. Tory Grandee (and standing down at the next national election which may have relevance) made a number of statements about fellow MP's who are standing in this election, On Theresa May - 'Bloody difficult woman' - On Michael Gove - 'We will be at war with three countries at once' - On Angela Leadson - 'She is not one of the tiny band of lunatics who think we can have a sort of glorious economic future outside the single market ... So long as she understands that she’s not to deliver on some of the extremely stupid things she’s been saying' Two external links (both via the Guardian newspaper) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/05/ken-clarke-tory-conservative-tories-leadership-race and http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/05/ken-clarke-caught-camera-ridiculing-tory-leadership-candidates-theresa-may-michael-gove ~good-old-music~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Good-old-music (talk • contribs) 18:47, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Kinsley Gaffe Lack of External Evidence

The four primary references for the "Kinsley Gaffe" all lack validity: one is an amateur blog post linking back to Wikipedia, one is a column by the originator of the phrase (no online text), one is a file-not-found (Teagan Goddard's website does have a page for "gaffe" but not "Kinsley Gaffe"), and one is a link to Merriam Webster's entry for gaffe which doesn't mentrion Kinsley Gaffe.

It seems like Kinsley Gaffe isn't a common term or even used beyond one political columnist. If I don't hear any comments, I'm going to restructure the section into a more general discussion about political gaffes.

74.109.237.9 (talk) 13:46, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Nope. You overlooked many other sources in the article. . 7&6=thirteen (☎) 17:02, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

And here is an historical overview that should be added to the article. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 17:05, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

What is the article about

The article appears confused as to what a political gaffe is. It opens with an Obama quote which defines it as a "maladroit phrase" - aka a Bushism, sometimes a malapropism - or ambiguous such as the "Polish concentration camps" remark by Obama himself ie wrong word or clumsy, ungrammatical or misleadingly ambiguous phrasing. A "Kinsley gaffe" simply appears to be a Freudian slip in a political context ie inadvertent truth - without reference to poor or 'odd' English. Then some of the references use the term to mean speech which had a negative outcome for the speaker such as this, which uses 'gaffe' to simply mean something the speaker had reason to regret saying ie nothing to do with either maladroit phrasing nor to do with inadvertent truth, except in so far as angry or tendentious words may show what one really thinks.

What is the article actually about? Pincrete (talk) 08:43, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Miniscule introduction

I feel like the introduction is not large enough. It also has a quote, which feels out of place right there.Mebigrouxboy (talk) 19:24, 20 November 2021 (UTC)