The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Spartaz ^Humbug! 03:53, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Obamaism[edit]

Obamaism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

This term seems to be a neologism and non-notable. The provided footnotes do by no means establish any notability and the ones actually using the term might not be reputable (about.com). Given the lack of notabiliyt this page could also be considered as political smear. Note that there was anearlier RfD that at the time was a close keep, but since then the Redirect was later turned into this article. --Kmhkmh (talk) 04:18, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - Bushism yields 99,100 Google results. Obamaism yields 132,000 Google results. Please see the previous AFDs of Bushism. --William S. Saturn (talk) 04:24, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  Note: This is not about Google Hits but reputable sources. For Bushism there's a large variety of reputable sources including whole books on subject and not just Google hits mostly consisting of arbitrary websites, blogs or soundbites by comedians. So you need to compare the sourcing of both articles carefully - for instance the Time Magazin speaks of Top 10 Obama Gaffes and Top 10 bushisms, i.e, it uses the term bushism but it does not use the term obamaism.--Kmhkmh (talk) 04:35, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Many of the sources for Bushism do not explicitly use the term either. This article was based in format on Bushism. Note that the Bushism article also uses About.com as a reference. I beg you to find another term with over 100,000 g-hits that lacks a wikipedia entry.--William S. Saturn (talk) 04:39, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

what "format" the article was based on is completely irrelevant. I mean as far as the format is concerned you could set up any "politician's name +ism" as an article and claim it's based on the "bushism format", that's no argument at all. As far the Google hits are concerned as I mentioned above for WP only reputable sources matter and whereas the Bushism clearly has convincing number of them the Obamism article still seems to have none. In addition it might be wortwhile to note that obamaism is used for completely different meanings than rhetorical or languages gaffes contrary to bushism, i.e. the Google hits for obamaism are not only not reputable for the most part, but there's also an overcounting. From my perspective, no reputable sources => no WP entry, simple as that.--Kmhkmh (talk) 04:49, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Other than those used in the article, there are many reputable sources: [1], [2], [3], [4] among others.--William S. Saturn (talk) 05:10, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As well as the book Obamamania! The English Language, Barackafied--William S. Saturn (talk) 05:22, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep and rewrite. [Updated below.] The weird thing here is that I agree more with the nominator than I do with my fellow editor recommending "keep". I believe the neologism is notable but not as it is defined in the article (i.e. as parallel of Bushism). Most sources using the term "Obamaism" refer to the political ideology of President Obama, not his verbal gaffes. As Kmhkmh has pointed out, the references in the article do not explicitly refer to "Obamaism" so they should be struck. If "Obamaism" does not parallel "Bushism" in the real world, then "Obamaism" shouldn't parallel "Bushism" in Wikipedia. Location (talk) 05:15, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I believe it should be expanded to be more accurate. Whereas the ideology, which accounts for some of the results, has its own article, it should be mentioned but not be the main part of the article. In the context of this article, the term should refer to three things: Misstatements and gaffes, phrases used by the president and words or phrases created from "Barack" or "Obama".--William S. Saturn (talk) 05:22, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

words derived from barack or obama (for instance obamamania) are completely different from obamaism in the sense of bushism (verbal gaffe), therefore they do not belong in an article called obamaism. If you want to redefine the term Obamaism as "everything (etymologically) related to Barack Obama or his gaffes" you would need proper sourcing for that as well, but frankly something like that starts imho to look like a political hack job.--Kmhkmh (talk) 06:11, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• No need for a rewrite. Redirect the title to Political positions of Barack Obama. Move the content to Obama gaffes or something similar. Location (talk) 18:09, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment no reliable sources, per kmhkmh, for this meaning of the word. on the subject of bushism: no comparison. there are dozens of books published with "bushism" in the title. There are numerous reliable sources commenting on President bush's idiosyncratic language use. there are no reliable sources commenting on President Obama's language use in a parallel manner. the term Obamaism is used almost exclusively to refer to the parareligious fervor found among his supporters, such as here: [5]. I am undecided about whether this meaning for Obamaism is notable, but there is no doubt that the article as its written is utterly without sourcing of note. sources provide by william saturn are from partisan political sources and other unreliable sources, and the book obamamania is silly made up words, not his gaffes. another source is his hitting his head. yes the word has some use in parallel, but nowhere near enough for notability.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 05:17, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Rename to something like Gaffes of Obama's Presidency. I don't see anywhere near enough use of the term "Obamaism" to warrant its use. The Time source is the only really good one and it talks just about these gaffes. That might be ok for a sitting president, but the concept doesn't need to be expanded beyond that point (we don't need a Joe Biden gaffe article, for example). Shadowjams (talk) 13:51, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 15:53, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - The title confused me too; I also thought it referred to his philosophy. If we decide to not keep, I suggest a soft redirect to wikiquote:Barack Obama. I have no opinion on the notability of this term. --Explodicle (T/C) 16:26, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Move to a title Obama gaffes since "Obamaism" more often refers to his supposed political views than verbal slips, per Google News search[6]. "Bushism" on the other does commonly refer to the numerous verbal slips. Undecided on basic notability of a listing of verbal slips. Should we list them for every president or world leader who ever misspoke? Edison (talk) 20:44, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep and rewrite per that vote above. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 21:51, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge with other articles such as Bushism into a single article, and redirect any "name+ism" format articles to it. There's already a List of Presidents of the United States by nickname article concerning that particular content; do we need to elaborate on the speaking styles of every single U.S. President?Toad of Steel (talk) 07:03, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In addition, both this article and Bushism contain much in the way of NPOV and possibly BLP violations... Toad of Steel (talk) 07:08, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Soft Redirect to Wikiquote. This article and Bushisms are, when you boil them down, a list of quotes. Movementarian (Talk) 12:57, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - essentially original research. There is a severe lack of reliable sources that use the term 'Obamaism' to refer to a gaffe by Obama, or discuss such a concept; still less that have any kind of detail beyond a list of quotes. Yes, there are a lot of Google hits for 'Obamaism', but most of them do not seem to be using it in this sense - they are using it to refer to Obama's political ideology (which, before I read this article, is what I assumed it would be about). Although what about X? isn't a good argument in any case, note that the Bushism article has considerably more reliable sources about the term itself than this one. Robofish (talk) 15:33, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not exactly. While Bushism has 17 sources over a period of eight years (most of which are not reliable), this article uses 9 reliable sources from a period of only two years. --William S. Saturn (talk) 17:49, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The difference being that almost all of the Bushism sources use the word 'Bushism', while only three of the sources here actually use the word 'Obamaism'. The former is a notable word, the latter is not (yet). Robofish (talk) 02:25, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete The sources given do not establish the phrase as notable or common enough to rate an article. Even the author of the article seems unclear what the phrase means, since after defining it as "gaffes (similar to Bushisms) made by U.S. President Barack Obama that include unintentional factual inaccuracies, politically incorrect statements and misstatements, as well as other comments widely covered in the media," the author then goes on to cite a whole different meaning, "phrases referred to as Obamaisms, where coined, which were adapted from his first and last names "Barack" and "Obama". Examples include Barackstar, Obamania, Omentum and Post-Baratic stress disorder. Slate magazine complied these into an online encyclopedia and came out with a book in June 2008 titled Obamamania!: The English Language, Barackafied, which listed and gave definitions to several Obamaisms." If even the author can't decide what the phrase means, it is clearly not notable enough to be included here. --MelanieN (talk) 01:47, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The reliable sources used made the decision, that's what guides the inclusion (since everything is referenced).--William S. Saturn (talk) 03:29, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Simply referencing something is not good enough to establish notability. You need (several) reputables sources, that show that the term is commonly used and not just the creation by an individual journalist or comedian. Furthermore those source need to use Obamaism in the sense of verbal gaffe or better explicitly discuss or define that usage. You cannot simply arbitrarily compile sources that somehow may relate to Obama or use expressions derived from his name. WP is an encyclopedia not random trivia collection for Obama (or any other politician).--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:30, 19 June 2010 (UTC)--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:30, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.