content of page

Newspapers occasionally refer to President George W. Bush by the initial W, sometimes spelled out as Dubya (a "Texan pronunciation" of "double-U"). This usage can often be seen in New York tabloids. And in a manner designed to infuriate the press, the president was quoted "Yes, I think people should be allowed to criticize me all they want, and they do. (Laughter.) Now what are you all laughing at over there? (Laughter.) Don't cheer him on. (Laughter.)

Look, there are some certain basic freedoms that we've got to protect. The freedom of people to express themselves must be protected. The freedom of people to be able to worship freely. That freedom is valuable." (Denver Post 3/10/06.) And Since the Current POTUS is not capable of indignant lip quivering and tears on demand--see "I did not have sex with that woman, what's her name, "what is the definiton of 'is'". Democrats should be most pleased that the current POTUS is an "idiot", by their definition.

Western journalists typically try to find the shortest possible term to refer to a subject, most often to spin their agenda, and the current US president uses the same common form of his name -- George Bush really--no kidding, DUH! I wonder why? as his father, who was president 8 years before him in an effort to disguise his policies, despite the fact that his father is close friends with Bill Clinton(neither of whom help Jimmy Carter build habitats for humanity.) The last Carter who actually promoted housing for the lower class was Billy, who endorsed mobile homes, and In this poster's experience was polite and educated unlike the 39'th President. The Mobile Home remote was a hoot in 1986! And if you can follow this path, all true, then you are a liberal.

Some reports indicate that members of the Bush family circle privately refer to the current president (served 2001- ) as Junior to distinguish him from his father. Yet it is by no means clear that this nickname is actually used, or in what context, except by Molly Ivins, who is getting what she deserves.

Table of nicknames

Neutral or positive

Some nicknames are used in a neutral sense, a positive sense, or in an ironic way mocking the positive sense:

Negative

President Bush's political opponents often use nicknames for him in a disparaging sense, such as:

discussion

Is this page really necessary?

And what the heck is "Debuya"? RickK 00:07, 14 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I like this page (yes, this means I oppose deletion). However, perhaps it would be better to have a general page on George W. Bush and nicknames that could include a list of Bush's nicknames for other world leaders - he's noted for his love of them, after all. Martin 02:10, 14 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I am extremely ambivalent about the existence of this page. Could it be better dealt with by being merged into the article on him? --Daniel C. Boyer 19:13, 21 Sep 2003 (UTC)

from VfD

I think I will start a list tomorrow Food that George W. Bush Likes. Smith03 01:58, 14 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Then there obviously needs to be a list Food that George W. Bush Does Not Like. RickK 02:03, 14 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Than we need to allow those foods or people who support those give a balance pov as why Bush is wrong in not liking those foods. Plus maybe there are some foods that he sometimes likes and sometimes doesn't like so maybe that could be a list:) Smith03 02:08, 14 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I understand Cyan's policy is that every nickname should be cited with an example of actual use? This sounds like a good idea, if everyone can agree that it's a good idea. But I'd like to have that agreement first - otherwise it won't be worth putting in the effort to get citations, only for them to be deleted anyway.

I moved this back because, for example, Cyan's proposed policy is relevant to content as well as deletion. Martin 08:38, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)

My idea is that the text of this article should read something like:

The following affectionate nicknames for George W. Bush are used by his family [reference]:
  • <etc>
The following derogatory nicknames for George W. Bush have been used on the partisan website http://www.DemocraticUnderground.com:
  • <etc>

Examples of actual use aren't necessary, as long as the instances in question are relatively easy to find. The POV problem is avoided by appropraite attribution of the use of the nicknames. -- Cyan 23:21, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)

This page should certainly be deleted. It clearly exists for no reason other than insulting Bush, I can't believe that it isn't apparent to everyone. I mean stuff like "Bushitler" and "Dumbya". I don't even like the guy but I can clearly see that this is pure POV insulting of a political figure that some people dislike strongly. Come on. Maybe JoeM wasn't entirely incorrect. ThereIsNoSteve 06:27, 21 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Somebody is going to have to go over to FreeRepublic now and cull out the 10,000 insulting and obnoxious nicknames for Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Hillary, or for that matter ANY politician and establish articles here listing them. When some jerk does that there will be absolutely NO REASON not to keep them since the precedent was set with this page. Bush cannot be treated as a special case. Keeping this page is such a bad decision I think. Ark30inf 19:07, 21 Sep 2003 (UTC)

If anyone were arguing that the content isn't encyclopedic, I might agree. (After all, Wikipedia picks up a lot more pop culture than other encyclopedias, including some very marginal material.) But people here seem to have let this point slip (cf. "NO REASON" above), instead arguing that the list is POV. My idée fixe is that as a general principle articles shouldn't be deleted for being POV - they should be rewritten. I will make this argument as forcefully at List of nicknames for Bill Clinton as I do here. (I won't speak for the motives of the person who created the article, but I personally don't care what epithets Americans hurl at their past presidents or the current one.) -- Cyan 21:35, 21 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I think the point is that its useless info AND POV at the same time which will generate opposing useless POV material which would then have to be accepted based on this precedent. I'm not sure that it is useful to know that somebody over at DemocraticUnderground once called Bush "Bushitler" or that someone at FreeRepublic called Hillary Clinton "Shitlery" or "The Clintoris". Useless, POV, and with a high probability of provoking tit-for-tat ridiculous articles that can't be deleted. Take your pick. Regardless, the VfD failed and hopefully the list will fade into obscurity without provoking anything similar. Ark30inf 21:47, 21 Sep 2003 (UTC)
It's already setting a precedent, with the newly created List of nicknames for Hillary Rodham Clinton for example. If these things need to exist, they can go in the article about the person. I see no need to have them as separate pages. Angela 23:24, Sep 21, 2003 (UTC)

The original nomination was because the article was or would become political (which was interpreted to mean POV). After much discussion, there was no consensus on this point. You can always (re)nominate this list and others like it for VfD, on grounds of unencyclopedic material and uselessless. (Just mention the fact that it's a renomination on different grounds than the original nomination.) -- Cyan 00:45, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

If you look at the size of the Bush article, its clear that there is no room there. The wiki has plenty of harddrive space for some lists of nicknames of famous people. Pizza Puzzle

In what sense does the main Bush article not have room? One place this list could go is under George W. Bush#Public Image and Personality, which already has some discussion of Bush and nicknames. -- Cyan 00:45, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

This article should only list common nicknames. A simple Google test can be applied. I removed, for example, "Shrubbleyou" which Google didn't find at all. --Wik 01:26, Sep 22, 2003 (UTC)

Gee Bushitler Bushitler is a play on his last name to make a connection with to both Adolf Hitler and shit. Boy if some one put this in the main Bush page it would be removed for npov reasons but having this kind of page sure is a nice way around that policySmith03 02:51, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

This page still doesn't conform to my idea of a NPOV list - many of the nicknames on this list are uncited, and the citations that do exist are unsatisfactory. I am adding the NPOV dispute header, and I will try to put it into what I think is reasonable shape. When I am finished, I will note so here, but I will leave it to others to remove the header. -- Cyan 04:38, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

My plan:

Cyan 04:40, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

At least its a plan. I would also say that you should measure the variety of websites using the term as well as the quantity of hits. For example if you hypothetically found 5,000 references to "Shitlery" but every single one of them was from FreeRepublic then it wouldn't be widespread usage despite the quantity. Ark30inf 04:51, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I'm finding a lot of name collisions, but I'm trying to narrow in on Bush nickname usages only. After surveying the nicknames, I am boldly establishing the threshold of 1000 Google hits; as a check, hits a quarter 100 down the list must still refer to the nickname in question. All denigrating nicknames will be prominently cited as such. -- Cyan 04:55, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

It's my bed time, so I'm stopping for now. What do you think? (I won't see your answers until tomorrow.) -- Cyan 05:20, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Better, but I'm not sure that the ones from a single website belong. The Hillary list needs to be done also but its my bedtime also. Ark30inf 05:29, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I think you mean the ones where I cite a single partisan website. These ones are actually in widespread use as measured by Google; the idea is to cite a prominent and clearly partisan source. I intend to move other nicknames into those lists. -- Cyan 19:15, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I don't understand why someone would want to delete the nicknames that was added with explanations in what context they where added and with sources. Wasn't that the way to make them NPOV? BL 10:57, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I could run over to a website real quick and add a bunch of derogatory names, then come back and list those names and cite the website as the source. My uncle has said a lot of bad, bad, things about Hillary. Is it useful for me to list those things and cite my uncle as the source? Ark30inf 17:52, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)
What do you mean by that? That you think I invented the nicknames I listed? Did you try to search for them? BL 22:35, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Some of these are prominent nicknames; such as "Pilot in Chief" or "King George". Pizza Puzzle

Oddly enough, the nicknames with cited usage that I deleted had among the lowest Google hit counts. Also, some of the cited links were broken when I tried them. I think 1000 Google hits is a fairly low threshold for popular usage - if a nickname doesn't even have that much presence on the web, then it ought not to be listed on Wikipedia. Case in point: "Pilot in Chief" falls far below the threshold I established, and many of the listed links aren't even using it as a nickname for GWB. -- Cyan 19:15, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I have to go. I had enough time to respond to these comments, but not enough to actually make any changes. Doh! I'll do more in about six hours. -- Cyan 19:18, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)


A general solution

I think I've found a general solution, that takes care of the partisanship issue. How about a List of nicknames for US Presidents page? We can start with Tricky Dick and 'the Father of his country'. If most of us can recognize which 2 presidents these nicknames refer to, then it means there is a venerable tradition of nicknames that stick.

I daresay there'll be a lot of anti-Bush nicknames, but I don't care. It's neutral to report that many people have partisan motives for making up nasty nicknames.

Better yet, list of nicknames for public figures and include everyone we can all think of. --Uncle Ed 19:22, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I like this idea. -- Cyan 22:55, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I think a threshold of 1000 is pretty high, 1000 is the current threshold to determine whether we write an article on a person at all; so we shouldnt require there to be 1000 websites using that nickname. Pizza Puzzle

Agree and disagree, there are many famous persons that get less than 1000 Google hits. BL 22:35, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)
This has nothing to do with what google threshold is used for the creation of articles. What has been done here is that a new standard has been set, by which, any factual statement can be deleted from any article if that factual statement cannot be backed up with greater than 1000 google hits. -BuddhaInside

The door isn?t closed to other metrics, but I endorse Wik?s suggestion that only nicknames in wide usage are added. ?Wide usage? is of course a fuzzy concept, but I think it?s safe to say that anything below 1000 Google hits doesn?t qualify, other information notwithstanding. -- Cyan 02:58, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Again, there is nothing specific to the nicknames of George Bush here. The precedent being set is that any fact may be deleted from any page, if that fact can be supported by fewer than 1000 google hits. -BuddhaInside

Any fact? I am bemused by the suggestion. I would expect contributors to construe the precedent as applying only to derogatory nicknames, or even a subset such as derogatory nicknames of politicians. It's moot now... -- Cyan 22:05, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)

If I went to Hillary Clinton's home page and put "Some people call her 'Shitlery'." it would rightfully be deleted (I hope) because it adds nothing. I suppose someone could come behind and put "Some people call her 'Wonder Woman' though." and that would make it fair and balanced in a way I guess. But neither would be particularly useful additions to an encyclopedia article. Putting them in a separate list doesn't improve their smell much. We would not smile on someone putting a bunch of anti-Semitic nicknames in Joe Lieberman's article nor would we be happy with a bunch of racist nicknames in Al Sharpton's article (I hope). So why would we think a separate page would improve the quality or usefulness of this information and make it worthwhile for inclusion? The current format opens the door for a page of these for every politician someone has complained about somerwhere (all of them). This will be my final comment on this one...I think my views have gotten a proper airing. I hope it works out to everyone's satisfaction. Ark30inf 23:13, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Peer Review

I?ve done my best to make this article NPOV by citing usage. I have also requested peer review at the appropriate page. -- Cyan 23:42, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Page protected to stop edit war. Please work this out people. --mav 06:29, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I really have no problem with the addition, or removal, of names based upon some sort of google/yahoo hit threshold -- but I think the threshold of 1000 is too high. I will concur that the term {Pilot-in-Chief) gets too few hits -- so pick a number between 50 and 1000; and maybe that will be better. Perhaps 500? Pizza Puzzle 00:11, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

There are two problems with this: (1) Google hits fluctuate; and (2) the potential reader probably couldn't care less about the information on this page. In fact, the potential reader is probably going to have a reduced opinion of Wikipedia because of this article. If this page had been nominated for deletion because it was unencyclopedic, instead of POV, I would never have opposed its deletion. (See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, point 9.6.) -- Cyan 02:30, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Using Google hits or entries as a basis for anything is a losing proposition as Google is not an objective source of information. Search results are continuously manipulated in several ways. Results are often affected by bots programmed to bury (or highlight) specific people, products and especially phrases in their search results. Google itself and its Reputation.com service, where you can effectively make things/people/events disappear from search results or go so far down the search results that nobody will ever see them for a fee or by Google itself for political reasons of their own. Newspapers and other publications de-list and remove pages from their searchable archives on a regular basis in response to changing political winds and to protect political figures. Using "other search engines" for most people is not a necessarily an easy or reliable source to find or use. How many search engines for newspaper and even other "search engine websites" will say "Powered by Google" if you look through the fine print on their websites long enough. Instances of nicknames or labels other than their specific name or title should be allowed, if the contributor has a specific reference where the name was used, whether or not Google search results back it up. RWBoomer (talk) 19:04, 15 January 2018 (UTC)User:RWBoomer

Is it settled?

I think Cyan makes the best points and has shown the most concern for getting it right here, so I'm going to cooperate with Cyan. Martin and Mav also made good points, as usual, which I promise not to neglect.

I rewrote the page yesterday, emphasizing what I saw as various degrees of partisanship and/or an intent to disparage. I intended my version to be neutral on the question of whether Bush deserves such disparagement, but I was rather freely subjective about whether any given term constitutes disparagement.

Thus Dubya seems rather innocent, while Junior is ambiguous (could be nice, could be nasty). I daresay it's clear that Bushitler is extremely nasty; again, I'm not saying whether it's deserved or not but I recall reading a columnist who called it undeserved. I welcome a sentence (or two) giving the POV of an advocate who calls it deserved. That could segue into an explanation of how the half of the US who voted against really feels about him and why. But as far as nicknames go, perhaps this is a good start. --Uncle Ed 15:52, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Is it settled? Which it are you talking about? Do we or do we not have a 1000 hit google rule for including facts in wikipedia articles. That is what was proposed above, and that is what I resisted. -BuddhaInside
Whether there is a 1000 hits ruling on this page has no bearing on the rest of Wikipedia. Rules do not have to be globally applicable. Angela 16:13, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I won't support a 1000 hit google rule for including facts in Wikipedia articles. Otherwise, we'd have to delete everything I just wrote about anthropologist Irven DeVore. Bush is arguable the world's most prominent public figure. He attracts a lot of comment. Some support, some oppose his policies. Don't people often use nicknames and slogans to express their feelings? What are your main objections to the article, Buddha? --Uncle Ed 16:20, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I have no objections to the article. I have no objections to a 1000 hit google rule for facts posted to articles, as long as that rule applies universally. I object to using one rule for one article, and another rule for another article, depending on the political whims of the editors. -BuddhaInside
You are one of the editors. Please revise the article as you see fit. I claim no more right than anyone else to decide issues such as form, content, style or whether a particular fact is worthy of inclusion. In fact, I'm going to leave the article alone for the rest of the week so no one will feel I'm "defending my article against all intruders", as user:Anthere recently put it. --Uncle Ed 16:46, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)
As I said, Ed, I have no objections to the article. -BuddhaInside
BuddhaInside, having a limit on number of Google hits actually has an advantage in an article like this one. It keeps the list useful by requiring that nicknames listed actually be used instead of just made up at whim without having to undergo any rigorous test of large-scale use by centripetal social forces. Ark30inf was worried about someone going over to FreeRepublic or another political site of choice and posting a note that made a newly invented "nickname" official, or going there and asking other people to create new nicknames so they can end 'em in. With a test count (be it Google or otherwise) we won't have to worry about it because one or two posts using a nickname won't count anyway (so why even bother to create new ones). It would take real effort for any Wikipedian to invent a new name and then get it used in a variety of 500 different posts over the Internet, so much that few Wikipedians would do it just to be able to place a new name that fits their own idiosyncratic political agenda on the list. The idea of a count rule is a good one. Wiwaxia 17:44, 13 Oct 2003 (UTC)

==

In light of the recent decision to delete List of Nicknames for Hillary Rodham Clinton I am planning on relisting this one on VfD in the next couple of days. Since a list that is exactly the same, except for a different political leader, received no objections there is no reason to expect that the community would be inconsistent.User:Ark30inf

Common on that is total outragous that Clinton is deleted and Bush 's is not This place has no sense of NPOV anymore Smith03 23:15, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC) Congrets people you may JoeM 100% right

I thought this was deleted? now its back? If people really want to list nicknames why not use List of nicknames of wellknown people that i am less against but having a page for each individual is stupid IMO. -fonzy

It was actually the List of nicknames for Hillary Rodham Clinton that got deleted. (Of course it, too, is back.) Wiwaxia 17:44, 13 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Well its not back now. If I understand correctly, VfD'd articles that have not passed an un-VfD vote can be deleted on sight. I sighted the Hillary one.Ark30inf 17:50, 13 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I'd agree with that, especially when whoever undeleted it didn't even report that they had done it and the consensus on VfU was for it to stay deleted. Angela 19:52, Oct 13, 2003 (UTC)

Please move the nicknames somewhere else, rather than deleting them entirely. How about List of nicknames for US public figures or US Presidential nicknames or list of nicknames for US presidents and their wives? --Uncle Ed 21:42, 13 Oct 2003 (UTC)

secondary VfD listing

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