Talk:Al Gore/Archive 13

Gore's admission of exaggerating global warming
I am new to the article but it seems to me the article should discuss some of the criticism of Gore's book and movie. I would also suggest using this quote from Gore's interview with a liberal environmental media outlet. In the quote, he admits he thinks the global warming message should be exaggerated. He says:
 * ''Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is..." RonCram 12:58, 11 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Same article, (Begin quotation)(This is where the quotation begins) "Perhaps it was more clear what Gore meant in person. By "an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is" -- an admittedly inelegant phrase -- I think he meant that at this point, people talking to American audiences need to spend more time convincing them that global warming is dangerous, relative to the amount of time they spend talking about solving the problem.


 * Americans don't yet understand how dangerous it is. Until they do, that's what needs to be emphasized. Once they do understand, then the emphasis can shift to solutions. That's what he was getting at.


 * I don't think he would ever suggest that anyone twist or misrepresent the evidence. If there's one impression I got, it is of a guy who cares very much what words mean, and cares very much about being precise. (A fellow nerd!)" (End quotation) {This is where the quotation ends)

Turtlescrubber 15:26, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Hey Turtlescrubber - cut us a break. Try to contain self-righteousness to the confines of home. Oxfordden 00:37, 12 November 2007 (UTC)


 * That's from the article and not my words. I added some notes to the quotation above to help you out, no need to thank me. I guess the quotation marks and allusion to the article being the same weren't enough. In the future, you might want to actually figure out what's going on before you make yourself look silly. Turtlescrubber 02:02, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Another careless misreading of Gore's over-precise and convoluted language?


 * "over-representation" and "exaggeration" are NOT the same thing, in the same way that "taking the (congressional) initiative in creating the Internet" is not the same as "inventing the Internet".


 * As is his style, Mr. Gore does tend to use precisely crafted sentences aimed at college-level readers, and often it can be (and historically has been) misconstrued by less careful readers, especially those who dislike the man (or his over-representation of his intelligence), and especially when critical context is edited out.


 * The quote above however must be put into the context of the question he was asked. In that context, it is crystal clear to even regular folk that he is saying "over-representation of factual presentations" (which is VERY DIFFERENT from 'exaggeration') is necessary at this time, because of his belief that americans are way behind in terms of comprehension of the threat. Exaggeration is DISTORTION, "over-representation of factual presentation" is FOCUS.


 * To bad Mr. Gore can't just say "focus" instead of "over representation of factual information". (Sigh...)


 * Gore's message would be much more effective if he'd answered the question with something like "Well, I certainly have focused intensely on presenting the facts about the threats, and if the resulting message is scary, it's because the facts are scary. Fear motivates action, while ignorance is bliss. Blissful ignorance results in complacency and inaction. The audience I'm trying to reach does not yet perceive the threat, and the focus of the message...my strategy here...is to underscore the threats in the fight against complacency." riverguy42 (talk) 16:53, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

FYI: Articles for deletion/Al Gore controversies
Just a general FYI that a related article to Al Gore, Al Gore controversies, is up for AfD at: Articles for deletion/Al Gore controversies. Thanks. • Lawrence Cohen  19:22, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

South Park
The article says "Al Gore has appeared in south park", whereas in fact the character Al Gore has appeared in South Park, not Gore himself. But I am a lowly anon and cannot fix this. 199.71.183.2 18:24, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I just removed the paragraph about the ManBearPig episode of South Park, which was not an appearance by Al Gore but rather a depiction of Al Gore in popular culture. The following paragraph (which begins, "Gore's willingness to poke fun at himself on the show...") implies that Gore himself lent his voice to the South Park episode. This latter paragraph originally referred to his appearances in Futurama. Doug W (talk) 15:31, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the entire section is a case of undue weight? While it is important to note that analysts think Gore's willingness to poke fun at himself is part of re-inventing himself, is it really necessary to detail every appearance he has made in popular culture to do that? The entire section could be trimmed down to a couple of sentences and integrated into another section without any loss of encyclopedic content and it would also eliminate (or at least decrease the impact of) the ManBearPig additions. --Bobblehead (rants) 21:46, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
 * this issue does keep coming up. i believe the section was artificially changed to "al gore appearances in popular culture" simply to preclude negative portrayals from being added. most other articles that have similar sections have simply 'xyz in popular culture'. but no matter how you slice it, it's ultimately trivia. gore appeared for less than one minute in an episode of '30 rock'. but this has adequate notability and weight to appear in his WP:BLP? i think not. we should either eliminate the section, or better, integrate it into the article in the context bobblehead noted - his 'reinvention' of his public perception. Anastrophe (talk) 21:52, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
 * So you want a trivia article with South Park and Simpsons references galore. Great solution. How about we just weed out the stuff that Al Gore didn't contribute to. Oh, it's already done. And you can take your accusations of bias and look into the mirror. Cheers. Turtlescrubber (talk) 22:49, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
 * please be civil. Anastrophe (talk) 23:03, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Turtlescrubber, what are you talking about? Seems like the idea I proposed and Anastrophe. supported would remove the useless references to all the cartoons his likeness has appeared in, whether or not he contributed to them. His appearances in Futurama are just as notable as his likeness being used in South Park, which is barely notable at all and not to the extent that they are covered in this article. The important part is that Gore has used his appearances to adjust the "stiff" caricature of him that developed during his presidential campaign. --Bobblehead (rants) 01:00, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, sorry about my earlier confusion. I am fine with your suggestion. Turtlescrubber (talk) 05:56, 29 December 2007 (UTC)


 * i'm confused, you say you're fine with the suggestion, but then you did a wholesale revert on this and other changes that user happyme22 performed this afternoon, including some good quality housekeeping. can you explain? Anastrophe (talk) 05:20, 30 December 2007 (UTC)


 * You don't just create a trivia page out of thin air without consulting the other editors on this page. The trivia page created by happy was nothing like what bobblehead suggested and I said that I would be okay with. This was the arrangement, "integrate it into the article in the context bobblehead noted - his 'reinvention' of his public perception." Not creating a trivia article. As far as I know, this has nothing to do with the creation of a new trivia article.Turtlescrubber (talk) 05:23, 30 December 2007 (UTC)


 * "is it really necessary to detail every appearance he has made in popular culture to do that? The entire section could be trimmed down to a couple of sentences and integrated into another section without any loss of encyclopedic content and it would also eliminate (or at least decrease the impact of) the ManBearPig additions" Bobblehead's words. Turtlescrubber (talk) 05:27, 30 December 2007 (UTC)


 * okay, but you're also doing a wholesale revert on a lot of other edits. how about, rather than using the meat-axe approach, just do what you claim in your edit summary that you're doing - restore just that section, rather than wiping out many other good edits in the process? Anastrophe (talk) 05:29, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * thanks for the re-edit, appreciated. any thoughts on trimming some of the less notable/detailed mentions - such as the one liner pointing out that he appeared on 30 rock? i saw that episode, it was hilarious, but - well, i think the disinterested reader simply isn't going to get much out of knowing he appeared, all other things being equal. Anastrophe (talk) 05:44, 30 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I did what I claimed, I did restore the section. I did it twice. Turtlescrubber (talk) 05:45, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * So you asked happy to create the Al Gore trivia page? Wow, AGF indeed. Turtlescrubber (talk) 05:53, 30 December 2007 (UTC)


 * the first two times you made the edit, you did a wholesale revert, and culled a bunch of other (good quality, housekeeping) edits in the process. you did not simply restore just the section, not initially. after i pointed out (twice) that you were meat-axing other good edits, then you actually made the more refined edit - which is what i thanked you for. i did not ask happyme22 to create the al gore trivia page. happyme22 made a series of edits this afternoon. after it appeared he'd finished, i noticed that there wasn't any link to the page he'd created, leaving no path from this article to it. i suggested that he should add such a link.. i will again ask you to please be civil. flinging accusations of conspiracy, and distorting the edit record, do not further progress on the article.Anastrophe (talk) 06:14, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

(outdent)Okay, I've gone ahead and removed the "Appearances in popular culture" section, trimmed it down to two sentences, and put the sentences at the end of the 2000 campaign section to show what I was talking about. Frankly, appearances by Gore or his likeness (i.e. South Park appearance) in popular culture are such a small fraction of his notability that it is barely worth any mention in this article and is definitely not worth an article all of it's own. I'm not completely sold on the location of where I put his "re-invention", but it seemed to be the most appropriate when I made the edit. --Bobblehead (rants) 07:31, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed slight restructuring
To me, the major section called "Post Vice-presidency" contains a somewhat arbitrary collection of what has happened after 2004. The movie and the Nobel Prize also happened after Gore was no longer VP. Conversely, the subsections on the 2004 and 2008 elections might fit better within "Political career." Therefore, I propose the following restructuring, which I hope will be seen as mainly painless by most contributors. Any objections? Hult041956 22:37, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Change "Political career (1976-2000)" to just "Political career" (or perhaps "Government service")
 * Move subsections on 2004 election and 2008 election into that Section 2.
 * Move "Education" into "Private citizen" and promote it (up a level).
 * Merge the election statistics now in "Electoral history" up into the relevant "Political career" prose.
 * Sounds like a good plan to me. -Classicfilms (talk) 19:13, 17 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Hearing no objections, I went ahead and did the first three of these changes. You can see this took very little editing. Really just changed a few of the headers. The fourth item is a little more difficult, as the tabular data doesn't fit well into the relevant sections. Hult041956 (talk) 00:51, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Looks great! I'm also wondering if the paragraph beginning, "Today, Gore is president of the American television..." in the lead should be moved down to "Private citizen" - that section needs a little work to make it a bit more cohesive. -Classicfilms (talk) 00:56, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Classic. IMO, the "Today, Gore is..." paragraph is a nice, terse summary of his current involvements and activities; I think it belongs in the introduction. I agree with you that the "Private citizen" section is quite rough. It could use some fleshing out and some copyediting. (BTW, I promoted your comment to the left, as it starts a new discussion.. hope you don't mind.) Hult041956 (talk) 17:56, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Not at all :-) Fair enough - maybe over time then the section will develop. Good work...-Classicfilms (talk) 18:32, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Controversies Merger Discussion
Hello all,

As there has been a decision to merge and redirect the controversies article Articles for deletion/Al Gore controversies, we should start talking about what should be merged and how we should start going about doing this. On the controversies page there are 5 distinct sections.

1. Fundraising 2. Internet 3. Love Canal 4. Use of energy in home 5. Meat Eating and Climate change

I think merging number 1,2 and 3 shouldn't be much of an issue. Number 4 should be merged but also reduced and I would advocate the non-merger of number 5. My reason for this is that this short section is a PETA advocated campaign and not, in fact, a genuine controversy. Regardless of what is merged, I believe that these controversies should be integrated into the text and not as a freestanding controversy section. Having a controversy section would be a step down in readability and article quality. This would also become a dumping ground for non-encyclopedic rantings. I think that forcing editors to actually edit existing text and style of prose will be helpful in maintaining the articles quality. So, lets start the discussion. Turtlescrubber (talk) 19:00, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It looks like number 2 and number 4 are already in the article, integrated into the main text. Turtlescrubber (talk) 19:11, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * As you pointed out, #2 is already covered here in the main article in detail.
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore#Internet_and_technology
 * As for the other sections I agree as well that the merger should integrate all material into existing sections. The Jimmy Carter article might serve as one useful model (though I'm sure there are others to look at as well). -Classicfilms (talk) 22:01, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * There's every reason why number 5 should be merged as well. Numbers 1 and 5 are perhaps the only significant controversies. Number 4 comes from a dubious source. deeptrivia (talk) 16:55, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't see why the PETA complaint would be included. It didn't get any traction at all in regards to it being a "controversy" about Al Gore. --Bobblehead (rants) 22:52, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

This article from Media Matters for America might be useful for this process:
 * http://mediamatters.org/items/200711210004?f=h_latest

-Classicfilms (talk) 14:59, 21 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi, all. I found this discussion late in the game, after the former "Al Gore controversies" article had already been deleted. As I read and understand the former comments page on that topic, as well as the deletion discussion, some users rightly pointed out the negatives in having a separate "controversy" page, and there was also a concern about having a long "Criticisms" section detracting from the relevance of the main Al Gore article (a point Turtlescrubber touches upon just above). What I do think is important is that there should be coverage of the important points in the deleted article built into this one, striving for NPOV and also not sanitizing the main Gore article by eliminating things that might make Gore 'look bad' (a concern repeatedly indicated on the former article's Talk page).


 * I myself make no secret of the fact that I do not have a high opinion of Gore, but all I am saying is that we need to have coverage that explains areas where there have been controversy that is notable and discussed in the media. The user of Wikipedia, whatever his or her politics, should be able to come here and have a reference point for such things. Whether it is the far right conservative who knows nothing about Ann Coulter's exchange with Donny Deutsch on The Big Idea, or the far left staunch Democrat who doesn't know why Gore joked on Letterman, "Remember America, I gave you the Internet and I can take it away", there needs to be comprehensive and not sanitized coverage of all aspects of an article's subject. If we can have a model of a criticism followed by its response/defense/counterpoint (and have that placed where appropriate in the main article, in preference to the "Controversies and criticism" type of laundry list, e.g., in the Coulter article and which Turtlescrubber and others rightly don't want to see here), that would be ideal. --MollyTheCat (talk) 10:24, 28 November 2007 (UTC)


 * OK, having had no disagreement expressed with my points above, I went ahead with Turtlescrubber's suggestion about merging the "Fundraising" topic from the former "Controversies" article into the main article. I condensed somewhat and tried to integrate this in at a logical point (the "Vice Presidency" section). I hope that this will meet with general approval, or if not that the reasons can be stated here. Thanks. --MollyTheCat (talk) 02:40, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Peace Prize?
Small note, but perhaps his Nobel should be mentioned in the opening paragraph? I know it's busy there, but a quick scan of other Nobel winners all have it mentioned in their intro. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.18.111.227 (talk) 22:57, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

popular culture
turtlescrubber, your definition of what the section should be is arbitrary. i've seen many variations on 'popular culture', and your specific limitation that only actual appearances by mr. gore are to be considered 'within popular culture' is not supportable. i see the section that is repeatedly being added as no different from the others. it's a popular cultural reference. perhaps the problem you have with it is that it is ostensibly a negative portrayal of mr. gore? i've never seen it, so i don't know how 'acid' the depiction is, but from the description it is a non-laudatory representation. "Al Gore in popular culture" would fit with how other articles treat the matter. I'm not familiar with any other articles that specifically restrict popular cultural references to only those where the bio subject actually plays a part in them. again, it's an arbitrary restriction, and one which i believe you were the first to put in place (without discussion, i might add). Anastrophe (talk) 00:21, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * following up on myself here: all of the existing appearances fall easily in the category of trivia, no more or less so than the reference that's been repeatedly added. why don't we just toss the whole section? Anastrophe (talk) 00:24, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I do agree that as the section stands, it is now a list of trivia. I suspect, however, that even if the section is removed, part of the information will be added again at a later date. Thus, I would like to propose that we move the material to a new article rather than delete it. I cannot find Wikipedia guidelines concerning popular culture references, but there are a few existing articles that might serve as models for a new article. Here are a few examples: Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, List of artistic depictions of Mahatma Gandhi, and List of artistic depictions of Beowulf. -Classicfilms (talk) 01:02, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the section is a list of trivia. I was never in favor of this section because these types of sections becoming dumping grounds for irrelevant trivia. I thought that by at least giving it some standards, i.e. criteria for inclusion, then it wouldn't become the complete shit that these sections are in other articles. Some people would want every family guy, simpsons and south park reference to be put in this section. Yeah, that's encyclopedic. Futurama is okay because he lent his voice to that and has done so on numerous occasions. The editors adding this south park to this section generally tend to be anons or users with less than ten edits who don't really care about quality standards. Every once in awhile we get a pov pusher. Regardless, this section, if it's going to exist, needs some sort of standards. If not, then it is purely trivia and should be handled as such. Maybe we should keep futurama and kill the rest. Or maybe we should just kill the whole thing.  Turtlescrubber (talk) 03:02, 30 November 2007 (UTC)