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Omar Bongo

Omar Bongo Ondimba (born Albert-Bernard Bongo; 30 December 1935 – 8 June 2009) was a Gabonese politician who was the second president of Gabon for almost 42 years, from 1967 until his death in 2009. Bongo was promoted to key positions as a young official under Gabon's first President Léon M'ba in the 1960s, before being elected vice-president in his own right in 1966. In 1967, he succeeded M'ba to become the country's second president, upon the latter's death.

Bongo headed the single-party regime of the Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG) until 1990, when, faced with public pressure, he was forced to introduce multi-party politics into Gabon. His political survival despite intense opposition to his rule in the early 1990s seemed to stem once again from consolidating power by bringing most of the major opposition leaders at the time to his side. The 1993 presidential election was extremely controversial but ended with his re-election then and the subsequent elections of 1998 and 2005. His respective parliamentary majorities increased and the opposition becoming more subdued with each succeeding election. After Cuban leader Fidel Castro stepped down in February 2008, Bongo became the world's longest-ruling non-royal leader. He was one of the longest serving non-royal rulers before his death.

Bongo was criticized for in effect having worked for himself, his family and local elites and not for Gabon and its people. For instance, French green politician Eva Joly claimed that during Bongo's long reign, despite an oil-led GDP per capita growth to one of the highest levels in Africa, Gabon built only 5 km of freeway a year and still had one of the world's highest infant mortality rates by the time of his death in 2009.

After Bongo's death in June 2009, his son Ali Bongo, who had long been assigned key ministerial responsibilities by his father, was elected to succeed him in August of that year.

Early life
The youngest of twelve siblings, Albert-Bernard Bongo was born on 30 December 1935 in Lewai (since renamed Bongoville), French Equatorial Africa, a town of the Haut-Ogooué province in what is now southeastern Gabon near the border with the Republic of the Congo. He was a member of the small Bateke ethnic group. He changed his name to El Hadj Omar Bongo when he converted to Islam in 1973. After completing his primary and secondary education in Brazzaville (then the capital of French Equatorial Africa), Bongo held a job at the Post and Telecommunications Public Services, before joining the French military where he served as a second lieutenant and then as a first lieutenant in the Air Force, in Brazzaville, Bangui and Fort Lamy (present-day N'djamena, Chad) successively, before being honourably discharged as captain.

Pre-Presidency
After Gabon's independence in 1960, Albert-Bernard Bongo began his political career, rapidly rising through a succession of positions under President Léon M'ba. Bongo campaigned for M. Sandoungout in Haut Ogooué in the 1961 parliamentary election, choosing not to run for election in his own right; Sandoungout was elected and became Minister of Health. Bongo worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a time, and he was named Assistant Director of the Presidential Cabinet in March 1962; he was named Director seven months later. In 1964, during the only coup attempt in 20th-century Gabon, M'ba was kidnapped and Bongo was held in a military camp in Libreville, though M'ba was restored to power two days later.

On 24 September 1965, he was appointed as Presidential Representative and placed in charge of defence and coordination. He was then appointed Minister of Information and Tourism, initially on an interim basis, then formally holding the position in August 1966. M'ba, whose health was declining, appointed Bongo as Vice-President of Gabon on 12 November 1966. In the presidential election held on 19 March 1967, M'ba was re-elected as President and Bongo was elected as Vice-President during the same election. Bongo was in effective control of Gabon since November 1966 during President Léon M'ba's long illness.

Single-party rule
Bongo became President on 2 December 1967, following the death of M'ba four days earlier, and was installed by de Gaulle and influential French leaders. Aged 32, Bongo was Africa's fourth youngest president at the time, after captain Michel Micombero of Burundi and sergeant Gnassingbé Eyadéma of Togo. In March 1968 Bongo decreed Gabon to be a one-party state and changed the name of the Gabonese Independence Party, the Bloc Démocratique Gabonais (BDG), to the Parti Démocratique Gabonais (PDG). In the 1973 elections for the national assembly and the presidency, Bongo was the sole candidate for president. He and all PDG candidates were elected by 99.56% of the votes cast. In April 1975 Bongo abolished the post of vice-president and appointed his former vice-president, Léon Mébiame, as prime minister, a position Bongo had held concurrently with his presidency from 1967. Mebiame would remain as prime minister until his resignation in 1990.

In addition to the presidency, Bongo held several ministerial portfolios from 1967 onward, including Minister of Defence (1967–1981), Information (1967–1980), Planning (1967–1977), Prime Minister (1967–1975), the Interior (1967–1970), and many others. Following a Congress of the PDG in January 1979 and the December 1979 elections, Bongo gave up some of his ministerial portfolios and surrendered his functions as head of government to Prime Minister Mebiame. The PDG congress had criticized Bongo's administration for inefficiency and called for an end to the holding of multiple offices. Bongo was again re-elected for a seven-year term in 1979, receiving 99.96% of the popular vote.

Opposition to President Bongo's regime first appeared in the late 1970s, as economic difficulties became more acute for the Gabonese. The first organized, but illegal, opposition party was the Movement for National Restoration (Mouvement de redressement national, MORENA). This moderate opposition group sponsored demonstrations by students and academic staff at the Université Omar Bongo in Libreville in December 1981, when the university was temporarily closed. MORENA accused Bongo of corruption and personal extravagance and of favouring his own Bateke tribe; the group demanded that a multi-party system be restored. Arrests were made in February 1982, when the opposition distributed leaflets criticizing the Bongo regime during a visit by Pope John Paul II. In November 1982, 37 MORENA members were tried and convicted of offences against state security. Severe sentences were handed out, including 20 years of hard labour for 13 of the defendants; all were pardoned, however, and released by mid-1986.

Despite these pressures, Omar Bongo remained committed to one-party rule. In 1985, legislative elections were held which followed past procedures; all nominations were approved by PDG, which then presented a single list of candidates. The candidates were ratified by popular vote on 3 March 1985. In November 1986 Bongo was re-elected by 99.97% of the popular vote.

Multi-party rule
On 22 May 1990, after strikes, riots and unrest, the PDG central committee and the National Assembly approved constitutional amendments to facilitate the transition to a multi-party system. The existing presidential mandate, effective through 1994, was to be respected. Subsequent elections to the presidency would be contested by more than one candidate, and the presidential term of office was changed to five years with a term limit consisting of one re-election to the office.

The next day, 23 May 1990, a vocal critic of Bongo and the leading political opposition leader, Joseph Rendjambe, was found dead in a hotel, reportedly murdered by poison. The death of Rendjambe, a prominent business executive and secretary-general of the opposition group Parti gabonais du progres (PGP), touched off the worst rioting in Bongo's 23-year rule. Presidential buildings in Libreville were set on fire and the French consul-general and ten oil company employees were taken hostage. French troops evacuated foreigners and a state of emergency was declared in Port Gentil, Rendjambe's hometown and a strategic oil production site. During this emergency Gabon's two main oil producers, Elf and Shell, cut output from 270000 oilbbl/d to 20,000. Bongo threatened to withdraw their exploration licences unless they restored normal output, which they soon did. France sent in 500 troops to reinforce the 500-man battalion of Marines permanently stationed in Gabon "to protect the interests of 20,000 resident French nationals". Tanks and troops were deployed around the presidential palace to halt rioters.

In December 1993, Bongo won the first presidential election held under the new multi-party constitution, by a considerably narrower margin of around 51.4%. Opposition candidates refused to validate the election results. Serious civil disturbances led to an agreement between the government and opposition factions to work toward a political settlement. These talks led to the Paris Accords in November 1994, under which several opposition figures were included in a government of national unity. This arrangement soon broke down, however, and the 1996 and 1997 legislative and municipal elections provided the backdrop for renewed partisan politics. The PDG won a landslide victory in the legislative election, but several major cities, including Libreville, elected opposition mayors during the 1997 local election. Bongo was eventually successful in consolidating power again, with most of the major opposition leaders being either co-opted by being given high-ranking posts in the government or bought off, ensuring his comfortable re-election in 1998. In 2003, Bongo secured a change in the Constitution allowing him to seek re-election as many times as he wanted, and changing the Presidential term to seven years, up from five. Bongo's critics accused him of intending to rule for life. On 27 November 2005 Bongo won a seven-year term as president, receiving 79.2 percent of the vote, comfortably ahead of his four challengers. He was sworn in for another seven-year term on 19 January 2006 and remained president until his death in 2009.

Relations with France
"French culture, economy, and polity have long dominated the small African country of Gabon. The French control of the colonial era ... has been replaced, since independence in 1960, by an insidious rapprochement with Paris, fashioned by Gabon's leadership. A French journalist long familiar with the continent wrote that 'Gabon is an extreme case, verging on caricature, of neocolonialism." Bongo's international relations and affairs were dominated by his, and by extension Gabon's, relations with France, Gabon falling within the ambit of Françafrique. With its oil, a fifth of the world's known uranium (Gabonese uranium supplied France's nuclear bombs, which President Charles de Gaulle tested in the Algerian deserts in 1960), big iron and manganese deposits, and plenty of timber, Gabon was always important to France. Bongo reportedly said: "Gabon without France is like a car with no driver. France without Gabon is like a car with no fuel..."

In 1964 when renegade soldiers arrested him in Libreville and kidnapped president M'ba, French paratroopers rescued the abducted president and Bongo, restoring them to power. Bongo became Vice President in 1966 after what was effectively an interview and subsequent approval by de Gaulle in 1965 in Paris.

In 1988, the New York Times reported that "Last year, French aid to Gabon amounted to US$360 million. This included subsidizing a third of Gabon's budget, extending low-interest trade loans, paying the salaries of 170 French advisers and 350 French teachers and paying scholarships for most of the roughly 800 Gabonese who study in France every year... [A]ccording to Le Canard enchaîné, a French opposition weekly, US$2.6 million of this aid also went for the interior decoration of a DC-8 jet belonging to President Bongo."

In 1990, France, which has always maintained a permanent military base in Gabon as well as in some of its other ex-colonies, helped maintain Bongo in power in the face of sustained pro-democracy protests that threatened to oust him from power. When Gabon found itself on the brink of a civil war after the first multiparty presidential elections in 1993, with the opposition staging violent protests, Paris hosted the talks between Bongo and the opposition, resulting in the Paris Agreement/Accords which restored calm. "In France, his old ally, Mr. Bongo and his family lived in the rarefied air of the super-rich. At their disposal were 39 luxurious properties, 70 bank accounts and at least 9 luxury vehicles worth about US$2 million, according to Transparency International...." French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing claimed that Bongo helped bankroll Jacques Chirac's campaign in the 1981 presidential election. Giscard said Bongo had developed a "very questionable financial network" over time. "I called Bongo and told him 'you're supporting my rival's campaign' and there was a dead silence that I still remember to this day and then he said 'Ah, you know about it', which was extraordinary. From that moment on, I broke off personal relations with him", said Giscard. Socialist parliamentarian André Vallini reportedly claimed that Bongo had bankrolled numerous French electoral campaigns, on both the right and the left. In 2008, President Nicolas Sarkozy demoted his minister in charge of looking after the ex-colonies, Jean-Marie Bockel, after the latter noted the "squandering of public funds" by some African regimes, provoking Bongo's fury. "He made his country and his oil industry available as a source of offshore slush funds', said political analyst Nicholas Shaxson, the author of a book on Africa's oil states. 'These were used by all the French political parties — from the left to the right — for secret party financing, and as a source of bribes in support of French commercial bids all over the world." After Bongo's demise, President Sarkozy expressed his "sadness and emotion" ... and pledged that France would remain "loyal to its long relationship of friendship" with Gabon. "It is a great and loyal friend of France who has left us — a grand figure of Africa," Sarkozy said in a statement.

Allegations of corruption
Italian fashion designer Francesco Smalto admitted providing Bongo with Parisian prostitutes to secure a tailoring business worth $600,000 per year.

Bongo was one of the wealthiest heads of state in the world, his wealth attributed primarily to oil revenue and alleged corruption. In 1999, an investigation by the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on investigations into Citibank estimated that the Gabonese President held US$130 million in the bank's personal accounts, money the Senate report said was "sourced in the public finances of Gabon".

In 2005, an investigation by the United States Senate Indian Affairs Committee into fundraising irregularities by lobbyist Jack Abramoff revealed that Abramoff had offered to arrange a meeting between U.S. President George W. Bush and Bongo for the sum of US$9,000,000. Although such an exchange of funds remains unproven, Bush met with Bongo 10 months later in the Oval Office.

In 2007, his former daughter-in-law, Inge Lynn Collins Bongo, the second wife of his son Ali Bongo, caused a stir when she appeared on the US music channel VH1's reality show Really Rich Real Estate. She was featured trying to buy a US$25,000,000 mansion in Malibu, California.

Bongo was cited in recent years during French criminal inquiries into hundreds of millions of euros of illicit payments by Elf Aquitaine, the former French state-owned oil group. One Elf representative testified that the company was giving 50 million euros per year to Bongo to exploit the oil fields of Gabon. As of June 2007, Bongo, along with President Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of the Congo, Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea and José Eduardo dos Santos from Angola was being investigated by the French magistrates after the complaint made by French NGOs Survie and Sherpa due to claims that he has used millions of pounds of embezzled public funds to acquire lavish properties in France. The leaders all denied wrongdoing.

The Sunday Times (UK) reported on 20 June 2008 as follows: A mansion worth £15m in one of Paris's most elegant districts has become the latest of 33 luxury properties bought in France by President Omar Bongo Ondimba of Gabon ... a French judicial investigation has discovered that Bongo, 72, and his relatives also bought a fleet of limousines, including a £308,823 Maybach for his wife, Edith, 44. Payment for some of the cars was taken directly from the treasury of Gabon ... The Paris mansion is in the Rue de la Baume, near the Elysée Palace ... The 21,528 sqft home was bought in June last year by a property company based in Luxembourg. The firm's partners are two of Bongo's children, Omar, 13, and Yacine, 16, his wife Edith and one of her nephews... [T]he residence is the most expensive in his portfolio, which includes nine other properties in Paris, four of which are on the exclusive Avenue Foch, near the Arc de Triomphe. He also rents a nine-room apartment in the same street. Bongo has a further seven properties in Nice, including four villas, one of which has a swimming pool. Edith has two flats near the Eiffel Tower and another property in Nice. Investigators identified the properties through tax records. Checks at Bongo's houses, in turn, allowed them to find details of his fleet of cars. Edith used a cheque, drawn on an account in the name of "Prairie du Gabon en France" (part of the Gabon treasury), to buy the Maybach, painted Côte d'Azur blue, in February 2004. Bongo's daughter Pascaline, 52, used a cheque from the same account for a part-payment of £29,497 towards a £60,000 Mercedes two years later. Bongo bought himself a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti F1 in October 2004 for £153,000 while his son Ali acquired a Ferrari 456 M GT in June 2001 for £156,000. Bongo's fortune has repeatedly come under the spotlight. According to a 1997 US Senate report, his family spends £55m a year. In a separate French investigation into corruption at the former oil giant Elf Aquitaine, an executive testified that it paid Bongo £40m a year via Swiss bank accounts in exchange for permission to exploit his country's reserves. Bongo denied this. The latest inquiry, by the French antifraud agency OCRGDF, followed a lawsuit that accused Bongo and two other African leaders of looting public funds to finance their purchases. 'Whatever the merits and qualifications of these leaders, no one can seriously believe that these assets were paid for out of their salaries', alleges the lawsuit brought by the Sherpa association of judges, which promotes corporate social responsibility.

In 2009, Bongo spent his last months in a major row with France over the French inquiry. A French court decision in February 2009 to freeze his bank accounts added fuel to the fire and his government accused France of waging a "campaign to destabilize" the country.

Leadership style
"[W]ith a neat mustache and piercing gaze often hidden behind dark glasses, he ruled.... He was a short man, like many of his minority Bateke ethnic group, and often wore raised platform shoes so as to appear taller... But his diminutive height belied his towering stature: on Gabon's political stage – which he ruled shrewdly for nearly 42 years -; and on the African continent, as one of the last of the so-called 'big men'."

Omar Bongo, Africa's "little Big Man", described as "a diminutive, dapper figure who conversed in flawless French, a charismatic figure surrounded by a personality cult", was one of the last of the African "Big Man" rulers. The pillars of his long rule were France, revenues from Gabon's 2500000000 oilbbl of oil reserves, and his political skills.

An ardent Francophile, at the inception of his presidency Bongo was happy to strike a favourable bargain with the old colonial power, France. He gave the French oil company, Elf Aquitaine, privileged rights to exploit Gabon's oil reserves while Paris returned the favour by guaranteeing his grip on power for the indefinite future.

Bongo went on to preside over an oil boom that undoubtedly fuelled an extravagant lifestyle for him and his family—dozens of luxurious properties in and around France, a US$800 million presidential palace in Gabon, fancy cars, etc. This enabled him to amass enough wealth to become one of the world's richest men. He carefully allowed just enough oil money to trickle down to the general population of 1.4 million, thus avoiding mass unrest. He built some basic infrastructure in Libreville and, ignoring advice to establish a road network instead, constructed the US$4 billion Trans-Gabon Railway line deep into the forested interior. Petrodollars funded the salaries of a bloated civil service, spreading enough of the state's wealth among the population to keep most of them fed and dressed. Gabon under Bongo was described in 2008 by the UK's Guardian newspaper: Gabon produces some sugar, beer and bottled water. Despite the rich soil and tropical climate, there is only a tiny amount of agricultural production. Fruit and vegetables arrive on trucks from Cameroon. Milk is flown in from France. And years of dependence on relatives with civil service jobs means that many Gabonese have no interest in seeking work outside the state sector – most manual jobs are taken by immigrants.

Bongo used part of the money to build up a fairly large circle of people who supported him such as government ministers, high administrators, and army officers. He had learned from M'ba how to give government ministries to different tribal groups so that someone from every important group had a representative in the government. Bongo had no ideology beyond self-interest, but there was no opposition with an ideology either. He ruled by knowing how the self-interest of others could be manipulated. He was skilled at persuading opposition figures to become his allies. He offered critics modest slices of the nation's oil wealth, co-opting or buying off opponents rather than crushing them outright. He became the most successful of all Africa's Francophone leaders, comfortably extending his political dominance into the fifth decade.

When multi-party presidential elections were held in 1993, which he won, the poll was marred by allegations of rigging, with the opposition claiming that chief rival, Father Paul Mba Abessole, was robbed of victory. Gabon found itself on the brink of a civil war, as the opposition staged violent demonstrations. Determined to prove that he was not a dictator who relied on brute force for his political survival, Bongo entered into talks with the opposition, negotiating what became known as the Paris Agreement. When Bongo won the second presidential elections held in 1998, similar controversy raged over his victory. The president responded by meeting some of his critics to discuss revising legislation to guarantee free and fair elections. After Bongo's Gabonese Democratic Party scored a landslide victory in the 2001 legislative elections, Bongo offered government posts to influential opposition members. Father Abessole accepted a ministerial post in the name of "friendly democracy".

The main opposition leader, Pierre Mamboundou of the Gabonese People's Union, refused to attend the post 1998 elections meetings, claiming that they were merely a ploy by Bongo to lure opposition leaders. Mamboundou called for a boycott of the legislative elections held in December 2001, and his supporters burned ballot boxes and papers in a polling station in his hometown of Ndende. He then rejected offers for a senior post after the 2001 legislative elections. But despite threats from Bongo, Mamboundou was never arrested. The president declared that a "policy of forgiveness" was his "best revenge". "In 2006, however, Maboundou, stopped his public criticisms of Mr. Bongo. The former brand made no secret that the president pledged to give him US$21.5 million for the development of his constituency of Ndende". As time went on, Bongo depended on more and more on his close family members. By 2009, his son Ali by his first wife had been the Minister of Defence since 1999, while his daughter, Pascaline, was the head of the president's administration and her husband the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paul Toungui.

In 2000, he put an end to a student strike by providing about US$1.35 million for the purchase of the computers and books they were demanding. "[He] was a self-proclaimed nature lover in a country with the largest percentage of the untrammelled virgin jungle of all the nations in the Congo Basin. In 2002, he set aside 10 percent of Gabon's land as national parks, pledging that they would never be logged, mined, hunted or farmed." He was not beyond some measure of self-aggrandisement, "thus, Gabon acquired Bongo University, Bongo Airport, numerous Bongo Hospitals, Bongo Stadium and Bongo Gymnasium. The president's hometown, Lewai, was inevitably renamed Bongoville."

On the international stage, Bongo cultivated an image as a mediator, playing a pivotal role in attempts to solve the crises in the Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 1986, Bongo's image was boosted abroad when he received the Dag Hammarskjöld Peace Prize for efforts to resolve the Chad-Libya border conflict. He was popular among his own people as his reign had guaranteed peace and stability. "Under Mr. Bongo's rule, Gabon never had a coup or a civil war, a rare achievement for a nation surrounded by unstable, war-torn states. Fuelled by oil, the country's economy was more like that of an Arabian emirate than a Central African nation. For many years Gabon was said, perhaps apocryphally, to have the world's highest per capita consumption of Champagne."

According to the political scientist Thomas Atenga, despite the large oil revenues, "the Gabonese rentier state has functioned for years on the predation of resources for the benefit of its ruling class, around which a parasitic capitalism has developed that has hardly improved the living conditions of the population".

Personal life
Bongo converted to Islam and took the name Omar while on a visit to Libya in 1973. At the time Muslims constituted a tiny minority of the native population; following Bongo's conversion the numbers grew, although they remained a small minority. He added Ondimba as a surname on 15 November 2003 in recognition of his father, Basile Ondimba, who died in 1942.

Bongo's first marriage was to Louise Mouyabi-Moukala. They had a daughter, Pascaline Bongo Ondimba, born at Franceville in 1957. Pascaline was Gabon's Foreign Minister and subsequently Director of the Presidential Cabinet.

Bongo's second marriage was to Marie Joséphine Kama, later known as Joséphine Bongo. He divorced her in 1987, after which she went on to launch a music career under a new name, Patience Dabany. They had a son, Alain Bernard Bongo, and a daughter, Albertine Amissa Bongo. Born at Brazzaville in 1959, Alain Bernard Bongo (later known as Ali-Ben Bongo) served as foreign minister from 1989 to 1992, then as defence minister from 1999 to 2009, and was then elected president in August 2009 to replace his father.

Bongo then married Edith Lucie Sassou-Nguesso, nearly 30 years his junior, in 1989. She was the daughter of Congolese President Denis Sassou-Nguesso. She was a trained pediatrician, known for her commitment to fighting AIDS. She bore Bongo two children. Edith Lucie Bongo died on 14 March 2009, four days after her 45th birthday in Rabat, Morocco, where she had been undergoing treatment for several months. The statement announcing her death did not specify the cause of death or the nature of her illness. She had not appeared in public for around three years preceding her death. She was buried on 22 March 2009 in the family cemetery in the northern town of Edou, in her native Congo.

In all, Bongo had more than 30 children with his wives and other women.

Bongo did also have some measure of scandal. In 2004, The New York Times reported that: Peru is investigating claims that a beauty pageant contestant was lured to Gabon to become the lover of its 67-year-old president, Omar Bongo, and was stranded for nearly two weeks after she refused. A spokesman for Mr. Bongo said he was unaware of the allegations. The Peruvian Foreign Ministry said that Ivette Santa Maria, a 22-year-old Miss Peru America contestant, was invited to Gabon to be a hostess for a pageant there. In an interview, Ms. Santa Maria said that she was taken to Mr. Bongo's presidential palace hours after her Jan. 19 arrival and that as he joined her, he pressed a button and some sliding doors opened, revealing a large bed. She said, I told him I was not a prostitute, that I was a Miss Peru. She fled and guards offered to drive her to a hotel. Without money to pay the bill, however, she was stranded in Gabon for 12 days until international women's groups and others intervened.

National honours

 * Gabon:
 * GAB Order of the Equatorial Star - Grand Cross BAR.png Grand Cross of the Order of the Equatorial Star
 * GAB National Order of Merit - Grand Cross BAR.png Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit

Foreign honours

 * France:
 * Legion Honneur GC ribbon.svg Grand Cross of the National Order of Legion of Honour
 * Philippines:
 * PHI Order of Sikatuna 2003 Grand Collar BAR.svg Grand Collar of the Order of Sikatuna
 * Yugoslavia:
 * Order of the Yugoslavian Great Star Rib.png Order of the Yugoslav Great Star

Illness and death
On 7 May 2009, the Gabonese Government announced that Bongo had temporarily suspended his official duties and taken time off to mourn his wife and rest in Spain.

International media, however, reported that he was seriously ill, and undergoing treatment for cancer in hospital in Barcelona, Spain. The Gabonese government maintained that he was in Spain for a few days of rest following the "intense emotional shock" of his wife's death, but eventually admitted that he was in a Spanish clinic "undergoing a medical check-up".

On 7 June 2009, unconfirmed reports quoting French media and citing sources "close to the French government" reported that Bongo had died in Spain of complications from advanced cancer. The Government of Gabon denied the reports, which had been picked up by numerous other news sources, and continued to insist that he was well. His death was eventually confirmed by Gabonese Prime Minister Jean Eyeghe Ndong, who said in a written statement that Bongo had died of a heart attack shortly before 12:30 GMT on 8 June 2009.

Bongo's body was flown back to Gabon, where it lay in state for five days, as thousands of people came to pay their respects. A state funeral followed on 16 June 2009 in Libreville which was attended by nearly two dozen African heads of state, including several of the continent's strongmen who themselves had ruled for decades, and by the French president Nicolas Sarkozy and his predecessor Jacques Chirac, who were the only Western heads of state to attend.

Bongo's body was then flown to Franceville, the main town in the southeastern province of Haut-Ogooue, where he was born, where he was buried in a private family burial on 18 June 2009.

title: Omar Bongo


text:
Talk:Where's George?

Imitators?
Hrm.... I don't like the word "Imitators". I feel it has a negative connotation. Certainly the other websites were inspired by WG, so I suppose I need a synonym for "inspire". UtherSRG 21:45, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * How's this now? "Influenced" seems to work well.

--Kyle 04:41, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC)

--I think 'imitate' is the perfect word. That is, after all, what these sites are doing Superstarwarsfan (talk) 23:23, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Chain Letter?
How does this compare with chain letters? A-giau 22:23, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * Quite different, it seems to me. -DavidWBrooks 01:00, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Defacing currency
"DoshTracker in England. In the UK its illegal to deface notes, so writing on notes is not an option, hence DoshTracker has not had the same kind of success as Where's George."

Shouldn't this be clarified? I think it's illegal in most places to deface currency, just not widely enforced. — Phil Welch 01:04, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

 * It's not illegal to write or otherwise marks US currency. However, to do so with intent to change (ie upgrade) the value of the currency is illegal. - UtherSRG 01:06, May 13, 2005 (UTC)

 * No, I think it's illegal because Where's George had to stop selling their stamp.- Nathan July 11, 2005
 * You "think", but your logic is flawed. I know that it is not illegal. I've been Georging for about 4 years. WG had to stop selling their stamp but others did not. WG FAQ - UtherSRG 15:31, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

 * The U.S. law on defacing currency is pretty clear, and simply writing on it is not illegal (else those brown pens that stores use to test the new bills would also be illegal). They don't care if you write on the bill, so long as the intent is not to deceive, defraud, or render useless. The law states: Defacement of currency is a violation of Title 18, Section 333 of the United States Code. Under this provision, currency defacement is generally defined as follows: Whoever mutilates, cuts, disfigures, perforates, unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, Federal Reserve Bank, or Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such item(s) unfit to be reissued, shall be fined not more than $100 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both. Defacement of currency in such a way that it is made unfit for circulation comes under the jurisdiction of the United States Secret Service. --Birdhombre 19:06, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

 * WheresGeorge stopped selling stamps mainly because it is taboo (if not illegal) to advertise on currency. If he was selling the stamps for his own site it might be considered advertising.  However, if a WheresGeorge user wants to get a stamp for himself and goes to an online stamp seller, that's not illegal.  --Cyde 02:01, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

 * You're exactly right. Hank had to stop selling stamps because it was considered advertising, which is indeed illegal. Other people selling stamps, however, isn't considered advertising, because the other sites are not the site being promoted. I think also the problem was this was seen as Hank encouraging people to stamp or otherwise mark their bills. The WG? site now does not encourage marking bills anywhere, except for very subtle remarks. [[Image:Pentacle_1.svg|20px]] Search 4  Lancer [[Image: Flag of Pennsylvania.svg|25px]] 07:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

US Code on Defacing Coin and Currency

 * USC 18, 331:
 * Mutilation, diminution, and falsification of coins
 * Whoever fraudulently alters, defaces, mutilates, impairs, diminishes, falsifies, scales, or lightens any of the coins coined at the mints of the United States, or any foreign coins which are by law made current or are in actual use or circulation as money within the United States- or Whoever fraudulently possesses, passes, utters, publishes, or sells, or attempts to pass, utter, publish, or sell, or brings into the United States, any such coin, knowing the same to be altered, defaced, mutilated, impaired, diminished, falsified, scaled, or lightened— Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
 * USC 18, 333:
 * Mutilation of national bank obligations
 * Whoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

There are both laws, in Title 18, § 331 and § 333. myselfalso 16:21, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Except, 331 is in reference to notes, not coins. I've taken the liberty of making bold the important part of 333, most pointed out by Georgers, and most obviously making what we usually do, not illegal. [[Image:Pentacle_1.svg|20px]] Search 4  Lancer [[Image: Flag of Pennsylvania.svg|26px]] 18:16, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

LAW RE MARKING ON US CURRENCY I know I'm going to catch flack on this. I AM quite sympathetic to Georgers who discreetly mark their bills. However, the truth on the legality of marking US currency is generally missed. It is apparently quite true that discreetly marking a US bill for normal WheresGeorge purposes would NOT constitute defacement of US currency. However, it nonetheless remains illegal for different reasons, though the US Attorneys' offices have clearly thus far not chosen to enforce the law, which is why we see WG-marked bills. I'm not sure that marking the bills with a counterfeit-detection pen would be illegal. Here's why. The federal statute in question is 18 USC 475, and it is independent of "defacement," though there could obviously be an overlap. Here is a link to that part of the US Code: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/ts_search.pl?title=18&sec=475 I've had people tell me that this pertains only to advertisement on bills, or that it pertains only to advertisements in the likeness of money, or some such. Yet, the plain language of the statute is clear. "Whoever ... or attaches ... or any notice or advertisement whatever, shall be fined under this title." This seems a bit ungrammatical, but I've pared away parts of the statutory wording to point out the "OR" word. Anyone who attaches a business card or advertising OR "any notice .. whatever" "shall be fined." I suspect that a counterfeit-detection pen's mark wouldn't be a "notice," but a website address likely would be. I don't like that this should be so; I am sympathetic to georgers in general, and I don't think that a discreet WG mark should be illegal, and I applaud the US Attorneys' good sense in turning their attention to other things than georgers (who, I would agree, would clearly not seem to be the intended targets of 18 USC 475, nothwithstanding the language used in the statute)... but I think it should be clear that there is no green light under US federal law to mark one's bills. I also suggest that Wikipedia's article should not suggest otherwise. Marking bills in the normal WG way isn't "defacement." It is nonetheless at least technically illegal. Zajacd01 13:27, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * To avoid original research it would be best to cite an outside legal opinion and not to form our own. --Dystopos 14:14, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * It is entirely true (if that was what was meant) that one can find God-only-knows how many pages online in which someone, someplace, is asserting that marking on US bills is only illegal if it constitutes "advertising," whatever that might mean in the context of 18 USC 475. (Is "www.wheresgeorge.com" advertising? Is "First Baptist Church of Ourtown, MD" advertising? For these purposes is "advertising" only that which is profit-motivated? Authority for this?) While most of these are lay newspaper reporters repeating what they've found on the web and elsewhere, it would also be true that some of these voices are from people in the enforcement community. However, as an attorney myself, I go back and look at the actual language in the statute. Legislators are presumed to mean what they say, unless another meaning is clear and unambiguous. DOJ manuals' interpretations are helpful but not binding, and are subject to change. If anyone is aware of a federal appellate decision interpreting this aspect of 18 USC 475, I'd genuinely be interested in seeing the cite. (...probably too much to hope for to want to see a SCt decision cite... ) Until then, 18 USC 475 makes it technically illegal (even if no one's enforcing it) to "attach" "any notice ... whatever" to US currency. I do not mean to suggest that some kind of a crazy crackdown is in the offing, nor that the DOJ has decided to put a stop to WG. My suggestion is that the Wikipedia article ought not categorically state that it is legal to mark bills. Zajacd01 14:50, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree that Wikipedia should accurately convey any controversy, and the statutes should be referenced, but since there is clearly disagreement about how the statutes apply specifically to Wheresgeorge, we should rely on independent published arguments and not on our own analysis, no matter how well-founded. I encourage you to read the policy at No original research in order to understand why this is important to Wikipedia's mission. --Dystopos 15:21, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Read it. Got it. I've in any event not sought to make any changes (to the main article) myself... Could the main article suggest, in the last sentence under 'Overview,' "However, the general view is that using Where's George? rubber stamps  on currency is are not illegal per se..." instead of "However, Where's George? rubber stamps are not illegal per se..."? I will, in any event, make no change to the main article myself, and will let my posting on this topic go at that... Zajacd01 15:45, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * That's certainly a reasonable change, so I made it. Thanks for your contribution. --Dystopos 17:05, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I was going nuts trying to find again the place on the Internet where I'd seen a government statement about marking on US bills, something which could be cited in a main article for the proposition that marking on bills is not necessarily "legal," even if enforcement was not at this point a priority for the powers that be. Something to get away from "original research."  I found it. "The Secret Service would consider it a violation of 475," spokeswoman Lorie Lewis said. "But whether or not the U.S. Attorney's office would prosecute would be up to the U.S. Attorney's office."
 * This quote may be found online at: http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2004/092004/09292004/1520547/printer_friendly

Name origin
Perhaps a mention of the name (not necessarily the original idea) probably being influenced by the "Where's Waldo?" books that were so popular earlier in the decade? CFLeon 23:03, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Sounds silly. And if anything, it'd be best to ask Hank before saying something like that. [[Image:Pentacle_1.svg|20px]] Search 4  Lancer [[Image: Flag of Pennsylvania.svg|26px]] 03:03, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

scienceblog.com research article link
This is linked to twice, once at the beginning of this article, and once at the end. This is redundant. -EdGl 19:55, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Then fix it. I find it comical how people will moan about things in articles when they can easily edit things themselves. OsFan 20:32, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
 * You mean, like you just did? - DavidWBrooks 20:49, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I didn't even check to see if it had been fixed or not. Has it been almost six months? OsFan 00:48, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

This is also a blog, and unusable as a source unless it can be shown that the writer is a well-known journalist or professional researcher. Infact I can't see the entry being attributed to anyone whihc pretty much disqualifies it since the website asserts "published by a team of science editors, writers and enthusiasts". None of those fall under professional researcher, and since its not named we can't ascertain that it was written by a well known journalist. Any material referenced from it will have to be removed as will the source.--Crossmr 16:36, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Gone?
I think the wheresgeorge website has been disabled and is no more.
 * No, it's still around. 68.54.163.153 20:51, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

hey guys, i tried to open the website but I always get this error message: Forbidden You don't have permission to access / on this server. Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request. can anybody help me to get to the site? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.87.82.187 (talk) 13:38, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
 * See this message for some information about the problem: http://www.eurobilltrackerforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=545851#545851 Avij (talk) 18:47, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Notability
We need some additional links to establish notability. The website being told not to sell stamps by the government and some of its data being used in a study is really stretching the notability guidelines. Actual coverage of these events or other articles from a reliable source in which where's george is the main subject would be useful here. --Crossmr 16:39, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your suggestion. When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills.  New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to).   --Dystopos 17:02, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm well aware of how to edit. I can point out a flaw in an article without being required to fix it. As it stands I don't really think this article meets the requirements, so rather than nominate it for AfD I've made a note so that an interested party can find the appropriate sources if they exist.--Crossmr 17:11, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

The site has been featured in dozens of national magazines, newspapers, TV and radio news programs, etc. For instance: Money Magazine: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/moneymag_archive/2000/07/01/282746/index.htm ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2436133 Wired Magazine: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.05/start.html?pg=12 Or any of the other news items posted on the website: http://www.wheresgeorge.com/news.php (USA TODAY, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, AP, NPR, CNN, Business Week, just to name a few). The release of Nature study and article released last January was picked up by hundreds of news outlets (printed and virtual) around the world. You can google "where's george? max planck" just for a sample of the stories still online. And as far as website popularity, Alexa has Where's George? ranked at about 19,026 of ALL websites. Bookcrossing.com (which was inspired by Where's George?), whose Wikipedia article is not questioned for notability is ranked at 32,745. Where's George? has been around since 1998 and gets more than 1,500 new registered users every day, and is mentioned in some press outlet, somewhere, about once a week (local TV, newspapers, magazines, etc). Henryhank 22:17, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Since some of this is already in the article, I think your notability concerns are misplaced. If you're looking for non-notable articles, wikipedia has about a bazillion to choose from. - DavidWBrooks 22:21, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I was just responding to the comment "We need some additional links to establish notability" posed by Crossmr directly above. I believe it was a valid response to a direct query. Did I mis-understand the question or was he looking for something else? Henryhank 22:25, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * No, sorry, I was unclear - I was responding to Crossmr; that is, I was agreeing with you that his objection was unsupported. - DavidWBrooks 23:23, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * None of those appear in the article currently. Hence why I asked for notability to be established. these should be included at the end of the article.--Crossmr 04:37, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

One more thing.. see this Wiki article Currency_bill_tracking -- The creation of Where's George? has inspired no less than twelve other money tracking websites around the world (several of which have their own Wiki entry). There are several not even listed because they are now defunct due to the Euro replacing other currencies. Henryhank 13:18, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Tyvek or Guardian?
Do Georgers support moving US $1 bill production to Tyvek, Guardian, or another polymer to print $1 bills? (See the Wikipedia article on Polymer banknotes.) A George'd bill would last a lot longer in circulation! Xenophon777 01:36, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

That would be silly IMHO, since the question really is do we even NEED a dollar bill and polymer is bound to be more expensive per note to create. I'm in favor of moving to dollar coins and using $2 bills as a minimum, then possibly getting rid of those and do $2 coins. Also getting rid of the penny wouldn't be a bad idea either. (I'm a georger, btw) As for US Currency security anyway, it's laughable. We really should get rid of the antique presses and upgrade like the rest of the world. Plus the penny costs more then a penny to make now anyway, and I think it's likely to be one of the lowest value coins made currently by any economic power. The dollar lasts a whole 21 months on average before it's destroyed (according to the wikipedia article, but my experience with WG? MOST bills are lucky to last even a year.) by the FRB's. The cost savings to the BEP would be hundreds of millions if they stopped making dollar bills and replaced with dollar coins that last upwards of 20 years on average. So yea I personally am in favor of getting rid of pennies and dollar bills and definitely upgrading the $100, $50 and $20 (at least) with more advanced anti-counterfeit protection. Not that my _opinion_ in this matters or contributes.. haha Raeky (talk) 20:51, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

 * At the time of my earlier post, the powers that be were griping about how quickly the dollar bill has to be replaced, and about the cost of doing it. Some countries do, indeed, use polymer blend "paper" for high-circulation notes. (See Wikipedia articles on the same.) They do save money, as the bills last a very long time. In any event, I also wrote to, I forget, the treasury, or whoever receives such suggestions, suggesting the use of Tyvek or another blended material. The answer I received in writing flabbergasted me. They do NOT WANT longer-lasting bills, they say, because the quick turnover discourages counterfeiting etc. Huh? Well, those were their words. So I give up. Dollar coins: I love 'em, but I feel rather lonely in that regard. $2's, also, I love, though I encounter a lot of (welcome) resistance from retailers. When retailers refuse my $2's (it does happen, though not often) I note the when, the where, etc., and write a complaint to the highest level of corporate management that I can find. I always get a nice apology and some freebies. I know that a well-worded communiqué also goes to the local retail establishment to educate them. As to pennies (and, as far as I'm concerned, nickels, too), the sooner they're abolished the better, though I'm not holding my breath. "If I were king", we'd get rid of denominations referring to amounts below 10¢. That is, we'd have only dimes and halves. All change would be rounded to the nearest 10¢. However, I did not consider a move to a polymer based material for dollar bills to be silly. Silly me, I'd thought that a longer-lasting dollar bill would be in the national interest. Ah, well. Xenophon777 (talk) 18:50, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

 * That's silly to hold the position that shorter lasting bills discourages counterfeiting. A $100 bill at most even on world class presses and best paper and inks couldn't cost more then say, lets throw out the insane $1 per bill cost. Thats $99 profit. I don't see how the counterfeiter cares how long that bill circulates once he gets his $99 or even if he sells it for say $50 for a $100 bill, thats $49 profit. How would he care if it doesn't last as long? A counterfeiter is only concerned about the inital point of "sale" of the bill, what happens after it isn't of concern. The response you got was probably from some low-grade temp worker who miss-read your letter and sent you the wrong form letter reply.. lol. Raeky (talk) 19:03, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

 * In my opinion, it certainly does matter how long a bill is in circulation. The concept is, you print a dollar bill that costs 10 cents to manufacture (just throwing a number out there.  I don't know how much it costs to actually manufacture a dollar bill).  Everytime that dollar changes hands in a transaction, it earns the state a .07 cent profit (or whatever your state sales tax may be).  So suppose I was Mr. Government and I manufactured a dollar bill.  If that dollar bill lasts 1 year, it might encounter 10,000 transactions, and thus earn the state a $700 "profit".  The fewer times I have to re-manufacture that dollar, the less my cost.  If I had a dollar bill that cost me ten cents to manufacture, but it would last 10 years, that dollar might encounter 10 million transactions, and thus earn the state a $700,000 dollar profit. You might say the federal gov't doesn't care how much "profit" the state earns, but the fact is the state receives federal funding for various expenses such as building roads, schools, welfare, etc.  So more "profitable" states would require less federal funding to meet their needs.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.74.223.213 (talk) 05:59, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Not a contest?
The article states, "Although there is a scoring system, the website makes it clear it is not intended to be a contest." I would appreciate clarification on this. Can you show me any quote or reference to back up this claim? It seems there is extreme competition amongst Georgers to get a higher george score, and there is even a seperate webstite called bankoffrank.com that has a spy tool that Georgers can use to estimate when they will overtake another user.

Obviously, the primary purpose of Wheresgeorge is to track the natural circulation of currency. However, the answer to the first FAQ as to why the site exists is "For fun and because it had not been done yet." Thus, it has become a contest for MANY users. Georegers, in addition to desiring a higher George score, also have goals of reaching certain Bingos, such as a hit from every state. Yes, there are user guidelines and no prizes. But where does the claim that it is not INTENDED to be a contest come from? Is there a quote from Hank?

 * From the FAQ, discussing George Score points: "They aren't worth anything, and you won't get any prizes. It is solely for the enjoyment by some users that like to compare themselves with each other." That sounds pretty un-contest-ish to me - it might be competitive among users but there's no contest (that is, official competition overseen by the site). Perhaps that distinction needs to be made clearer. - DavidWBrooks 23:49, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Not Notable? Really?
WheresGeorge would be recognized by a percentage of the population throughout the United States and the world. It has inspired similar sites to track Canadian currency (WheresWilly), the Euro (EuroTracker), and others. It has appeared in articles in Inc, Fortune, and Forbes. I'm a bit bewildered by the notability suggestion... particularly as I'd thought that this question had been laid to rest back in March. (See the "Notability" discussion above.) Xenophon777 15:08, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

BTW, what's the rule (or convention, or protocol...) for removing the "Notability" tag from the article if it isn't really appropriate? How long does it stay up there, if the matter has been dealt with in a prior month, before it should be taken down? Xenophon777 15:14, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

The notability issue was, as Xenophon777 mentions, discussed and the tag was removed. This new tag should be removed immediately. Spacini 18:07, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Photo needed?
Does the article really need to have my photo on the page? I don't see the need or the relevance. Henryhank 22:17, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
 * It seems encyclopedic to have a photo of the website's founder on an article about the website. Videmus Omnia Talk  22:33, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
 * That doesn't seem to be the consensus among Wikipedia. None of the following website articles have photos of their founders:  Bookcrossing, Geocaching, Google, Amazon, AOL, Ebay, YouTube, Craigslist, Digg, Apple, NetFlix, Go Daddy, Match.com, Napster, and heck, even Wikipedia's own entry doesn't have a photo of Jimmy Wales.  I don't see why Where's George? is different or important enough to have my photo.  It needs to be removed. Henryhank 11:54, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Most of the founders of the above websites have their own biographical articles...however, I requested an outside opinion on the issue here, and will be happy to go along with whatever consensus is at that discussion. Videmus Omnia Talk  12:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Can you also remove my image from wikimedia and wikipedia as indicated here: . Thanks. Henryhank 20:23, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

On Weasel Words
It seems to me not necessarily notable that there are disagreements about whether or not certain entries are removed in the website. The website, after all, is one fellow's site sharing information with others. In general, internet common law seems to recognize that one may police one's site as one sees fit, and if the owner is capricious, the offended party may avoid the site. I recommend that the weaseling about arbitrariness be removed, as it is not in the interests of the reader. --Steve (talk) 17:04, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
 * You're right: it was a load of vague, opinionated hooey. I have trimmed that section way down and also put in a couple of "fact" tags. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 18:26, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Just to let you know, the user who originally wrote that section with all the Weasel words was recently terminated for "dumping" bills in banks. It was pure vengeance/retaliation they added that section. Thanks for editing it. Henryhank (talk) 00:28, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Is there a citation we can add to the comments? Any notation or official comment on the Website about accounts being terminated for this? - DavidWBrooks (talk) 21:18, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * It's all in the User Guidelines: http://www.wheresgeorge.com/rules.php#7 (see #7) Henryhank (talk) 14:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Website discriminates against some browsers
I just added a paragraph noting that the www.wheresgeorge.com web server serves blank documents, instead of the real pages, to some browsers. I have a formal source for this, but it's difficult to cite, so I'm putting it here. Having received blank pages when attempting to view the website in Lynx, I sent a message to the website admins via the site's contact form:

 * When I attempt to view the www.wheresgeorge.com website using the Lynx browser, I get only a blank page. This happens not only for the front page but also for every other page that I've tried (such as /contact_us.php).  I've experimentally determined that this is determined by the User-Agent: header.  If I use lwp-request to send an HTTP request with no User-Agent: header, then I get a sensible HTML document as a response (which Lynx can then render suitably from a local file).  If I send a similar request using lwp-request, differing only in the addition of the header "User-Agent: libwww-FM/2.14", then I get a response with a blank body.  Please fix.

I then got a reply by email:

 * The website blocks certain user-agents due to abuse in the past from crackers/hackers, spammers, bots, and scripts. Yes, I know it's not a perfect solution, but it stops the script kiddies and spammers.
 * --Hank

For this dialogue I used a throwaway mailinator.com email address, so for the next couple of hours the reply will be accessible at. mailinator.com expires messages really fast. 195.167.186.2 (talk) 18:27, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

This is not the place to endlessly debate about wether or not Wheres George is legal.
There are many good threads already about this on the Where's George forums and other websites. This is not the place to debate about opinions of the wordings of laws, please take these discussions elsewhere. Superstarwarsfan (talk) 03:39, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

 * No problem, so long as the article itself does not come out and flat out say there's no whiff of illegality in the marking of bills--even when that marking does not rise to the level of defacement (which is another issue). If the article says nothing at all about the legality of marking bills, I've no problem. However, please note that the prior edit not only claimed that marking bills is okay (pursuant to a compromise of last year), but went on to give a rationale for the assertion. I pointed out that not only does the law state that it's illegal (even if no one's enforcing it), but -- here avoiding original research -- also provided a link to a statement by a Secret Service spokesperson in print to that effect. Okay, I'm getting long-winded. If the article refrains from positively stating that marking bills is legal, then I'll be in agreement with you. Zajacd01 (talk) 20:48, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Mismatched Doublequotes
In the following:

The Where's George? site says it "prohibits trading or exchanging bills with friends, family or anyone known to the bill distributor for the purpose of re-entry". This rule is to encourage 'natural circulation' of the currency, and to prevent multiple 'fake hits' from happening on any bill." As a result, all bills containing the word "geocache" or "cache" are tagged as a geocache bill. The site has also dropped a separate listing of "Top 10 Geocache bills" and is cautioning that if geocache sites are used too often, "all Geocache bills will be removed from this site."

There the doublequote in 'happening on any bill."' seems unmatched. I dunno where its partner ought to be inserted though or whether it is extraneous, so cannot fix it myself.

Knotwork (talk) 14:59, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

 * I edited the page. Is that what you meant? Superstarwarsfan (talk) 02:41, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Remove "Site Policing"
I would like to request the other editors of this page that we remove the "Site Policing" section of the article.

It was originally written by a disgruntled WG user in retaliation for having their account disabled due to clear rule violations.

This section really doesn't add to the article, and it gives off a negative overall "vibe".

To avoid controversy, I am requesting discussion here, rather than just editing it myself. thanks.

Henryhank (talk) 15:17, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe
The title deserves to be changed. To what, I'm not sure.

Below is an example:

Regulation
In accordance with site policies, Where's George? is regulated so that certain activities do not adversely affect users and the site in general. One prohibited action is dumping: depositing a large amount of bills at one time into a financial organization. The site deems "dumping" an unnatural form of circulation and reserves the right to remove bills from the the database. Calebrw (talk) 15:51, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

 * I still don't like the overall tone. Most (if not all) websites have some level of *internal* policy enforcement... I don't see the need to make this public and give people the idea that this is a big problem they might run into.  Like I said, the *only* reason this section exists is because of a disgruntled user who didn't like my policies. Henryhank (talk) 18:04, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

 * I see your point. Could this be integrated into the George Score section? Calebrw (talk) 18:37, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Example: Although there is a scoring system, the site makes it clear that this is not intended to be a contest. The site also prohibits marking bills and depositing them into financial institutions en masse.

Change made. No dissent. — Calebrw (talk) 03:38, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Japan
The comment added about Japan not being able to access Where's George? is totally inaccurate and not factual. Certain ISPs in Japan known to host spammers and web form attackers have been blocked from accessing the site. Not all of Japan is blocked. The original comment was added by a disgruntled user who is/was a user of one of these ISPs. Since I do not publish or disclose which ISPs or subnets are currently blocked (it changes over time, none of this can possibly be factual. I suggest the entire line (and any subsequent comments like it) be removed. Henryhank (talk) 19:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Based on this evidence, and who else would no best, I believe that the line should be removed. If there is not dissent within 3 days, I will remove this content. Calebrw (talk) 22:51, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * If it's BS, its BS and it's now gone. No need to get consensus for unsourced crap left behind by someone with an axe to grind.Montco (talk) 23:53, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Legal?!
At which point was any reference to the laws pertaining to WG? removed from the article? I think they should be listed, a legal section at least! I'm a georger and the first thing that pops in most people's head is "OMG THAT'S ILLEGAL!!" and the legality of it is a very gray area. The law is: and it is an INTENT based law, the whole ideal of WG? is so your marked bills recirculate so your intent can't be to have it removed from circulation by the basic definition of wheresgeorge. Anyway not having the legal issues discussed in the article makes the article seem as if that aspect is being covered up, since clearly the majority of people have the impression it's illegal. Raeky (talk) 11:03, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

 * I don't object to a discussion about legality in this article, but will object in a stentorian fashion if it's one-sided and uncited. Please note my [much] earlier post above on the issue. I do agree that the typical Where'sGeorge marking on a bill would not constitute "defacement." There is another federal statute that applies here, however:, and it is independent of "defacement," though there could obviously be an overlap. I've had people tell me that this pertains only to advertisement on bills, or that it pertains only to advertisements in the likeness of money, or some such. Yet, the plain language of the statute is clear. "Whoever ... or attaches ... or any notice or advertisement whatever, shall be fined under this title." I'll tell, as an attorney, that the plain language of the statute would govern. Anyone putting a typical, discreet, WG mark on a bill would run afoul of 18 USC 475. That said, the US Attorneys have thus far had the good sense to not go prosecuting Georgers. I did at one point include a cite in the article from a spokesperson from the Secret Service emphasizing that the Service does consider WG marks to be illegal, while recognizing that the US Attys have thus far chosen to turn a blind eye to it all. In any event, I, for one, would not object to a discussion of the legality, but would object to uncited, blanket statements putting Wikipedia on the line as rendering to the public a blanket legal opinion that marking bills is "legal", particularly in the face of contrary statements from the Secret Service, and the dearth of citable legal authority to support any assertions of legality. (I'll add -- I too am a Georger -- that taking part in WheresGeorge without marking bills is, of course, a different matter altogether, and without any whiff of a taint of illegality...) Xenophon777 (talk) 19:02, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

 * I don't see how an independent individual, separate from the owner of the site, not benefiting at all financially from his actions could be charged with advertising. The statute also doesn't apply to TEMPORARY markings that is clearly advertising (previous ad campaigns with removable stickers put on currency was legal). Hank selling stamps was dangerously close to violating the 745 provision, but as individual users of the site I'm pretty sure they're not in violation of it. Also the SS has stated they have no interest in presueing cases against WG? or it's users publically. Raeky (talk)

 * True, the Service has shown no interest in pursuing Georgers (Hank aside, at least to the extent of their little visit). Note that the language of the indicated statute does not say that it's only against advertisements. It's against “any notice or advertisement whatever”, clearly, using rules of constuction, referring to more than just ads. We probably shouldn't make this into more than it is. The Service isn't going out and rounding people up. It's just that, if it were ever determined that text like “Track this bill at http://www.wheresgeorge.com!” were ever held to be a “notice” within the meaning of 18 USC §475, then marking of bills by Georgers would be illegal. (This is a different statute from the one you are quoting, which deals with defacement, a different issue--and I would agree that normal Wheres George markings would not normally consitute defacement.) Note also that 18 USC 475 does not refer to “temporary” markings, nor make exception for nonprofit markings. Some time ago the “truce” on this topic in the article was to note that a Service spokeswoman had said that marking bills was illegal, while noting a general consensus that it was not--without involving Wikipedia in it any further than that. Note also that 18 USC 475 does not refer to “temporary” markings, nor make exception for nonprofit markings. Zajacd01 (talk) 19:22, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

This dispute is an example of why the section was removed, I suspect. Obviously, we should NOT try to indicate whether or not this is illegal since there is legitimate debate. Instead, we can have a short section saying something like "questions often arise about the legality of the process due to laws against defacing currency", then cite a couple of laws, and make it clear that it's not settled. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 20:29, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree there is dispute, but it should be mentioned in the article! As for temporary stickers things like this http://commercial-archive.com/node/108032 have been popping up more frequently. They're removable, like Post-It adhesive, and the SS has stated that because it's easily removable it doesn't violate the law. (Can't find an exact link to that at the moment, but have seen it quoted before). Raeky (talk) 04:07, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

There needs to be something about the legality of it
This article is basically a wheres george praise page. There are a lot of people who feel that this is illegal. I myself do not but that is besides the point. Other points of view need to be added. Joey Skywalker (talk) 19:04, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

 * Please review the last paragraph of the "Hits" section. The question of the legality of WG is dealt with there with text which has been delicately balanced over time between the views of different editors. Incidentally, there isn't actually a controversy over whether marking the bills constitues defacement, which it clearly isn't, but whether it separately violates a separate prohibition cited in that paragraph. The new "legality" section should accordingly be removed. Xenophon777 (talk) 23:58, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Better? Joey Skywalker (talk) 00:55, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

 * It does sound a bit better, but you need a citation for Wheres George? has been accused of costing the government money by marking bills and thus shortening their life. I left your edits in their own controversy section and added  .  As this subject seems to have been discussed several times on this talk page (3, 4, 15, 19), additional editors likely have an opinion as to whether controversy/legality deserves its own section. —Ost (talk) 18:19, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

 * The statement Wheres George? has been accused of costing the government money by marking bills and thus shortening their life. has absolutely no basis in fact. I have never received one complaint or comment from anyone concerning the "cost" of users marking their currency. I move to have this false statement removed. Henryhank (talk) 03:12, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Home page screen cap
Since people don't like it too much when I edit the WG article, I would like to suggest the top image of the home page be updated to the current (new) home page as of October 10, 2010 when WG 2.4 was released. I can supply this image to anyone who wants to make this change. Thanks. Henryhank (talk) 02:38, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Smithsonian article
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2013/03/tracing-1-bills-across-the-united-states-is-a-surprisingly-useful-hobby/

Not sure if it's worth inclusion or not, but thought I'd post it here so editors can decide. — raeky  t  17:10, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

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Disputed
The whole thing is a bit overdetailed and primary-linked to my taste, but the real problem is this:
 *  Gary has entered over 2,197,536 bills.[19]

Yes, the reference matches (and shows others around the 800,000 mark), but I see absolutely no legitimate way that a human had millions of entries.

One second per entry is probably a minimum (even if there are bundle-submission forms, you still have to enter a serial number). Two millions of seconds is a little more than 23 days (of 24h each).

Moreover, he would need to have physically handled millions of (I assume) $1 bills which is dubious (CEOs do not get paid in cash). If you try to get as many serials as you can, you can always travel around US towns with 1000 bills of $1 and try to exchange them all at shops etc. but assuming can exchange 3000 bills a day (which sounds very optimistic to me) it means a full year of travelling around and trading bills 7/7 to have made a million exchanges (and it does not even mean you will have seen a million different bills).

Now it is possible that a bored millionnaire took a 2+-year vacation to exchange bills at day and submit them on the website at night but it does not look very credible. Per WP:EXCEPTIONAL, I see no reason to take the website counter's at face value. (Having "made" via bot millions of bogus submissions looks possible, though.)

Tigraan Click here to contact me 12:23, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

 * The source provided is a link to an official report by the parent organization. Regardless of the "legitimacy" of the entries, there is little reason to doubt its factual accuracy. The mathematical calculation you've provided does not seem to disprove the claim in any way. 23 days of 24h each is obviously impossible for a single human, but consider that 46 days of 12h each is in fact possible and since the website had been in operation for around 5900 days (since its founding in December 1998) at the time the database report was generated, Gary would only have had to enter 373 bills per day (i.e. spend 6.5 minutes a day at the 1-second-per-entry rate you suggested or even a leisurely 31 bills an hour for a normal 12-hour day) to achieve his total. Nothing particularly exceptional about that except dedication. -Thibbs (talk) 15:17, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

 * It does look a little dubious, but we can take the journalists' way out: Instead of stating it as a fact, state the fact that he makes the claim. "Gary claims to have entered XXXXX. .."- DavidWBrooks (talk) 20:02, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

 * That sounds reasonable to me. If I had to speculate on how Gary achieved this feat if it wasn't really done by one person, my guess would be that "Gary" is just a username shared by several people. But of course that's just my own original theory and it's safest to just parrot back what the sources say like a journalist. -Thibbs (talk) 00:40, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

 * Since nobody seems to care much, I've vague-ified it with "claim" and removed that hatnote. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 17:17, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

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