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Talk:Donald Trump/Archive 46

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Latest comment: 7 years ago by MB298 in topic Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 6 February 2017
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Should Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations be mentioned in the lead?

Latest comment: 7 years ago35 comments15 people in discussion

What happened to the Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations in the lead? We clearly had consensus to include this in the lead; it was and is a major issue, with a lengthy in-depth article and extensive coverage in reliable sources. Seeing how today's protests against him focus on his attitude to women and the sexual misconduct allegations, this controversy has not become less noteworthy, rather the opposite. --Tataral (talk) 20:03, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Do you have a link to the discussion where consensus was formed to keep in in the lead? Fbifriday (talk) 20:32, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
Dig up that consensus and we'll throw it back in. Otherwise we might need a new discussion, however I find it very reasonable seeing as the number of accusers is quite high by now. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 21:27, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
They do not belong in the lead since they are relatively minor compared with the topic, although they were an issue in the campaign. Note we don't have unproved allegations of sexual misconduct (or even proven ones) in the lead of Bill Clinton. TFD (talk) 21:34, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
They are major enough to have triggered a hundreds-thousand strong protest today in Washington DC. They're not minor, and if we have consensus they should be included, then they should be. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 21:36, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
No, they are protesting because they believe Trump threatens gender equality and other issues of interest to women. He may repeal the Affordable Care Act, make abortions more difficult to obtain, eliminate pay equity, keep a low minimum wage or even abolish it, stop the DOJ from prosecuting civil rights violations, etc. Note there were not similar protests against Bill Clinton, because women thought that he would be progressive on these issues. BTW the war in Iraq that George Bush and Hillary Clinton supported drew millions of demonstrators. TFD (talk) 21:46, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
TFD, "...note that there were not..."--please, this is not a forum. Thank you. Drmies (talk) 00:30, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
No it is not a forum and your opinion that the women were protesting Trump because of the accusations against him is false. People do not protest allegations, they protest for ideological reasons. That's why Trump has women protesting against him and Clinton did not. TFD (talk) 01:26, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
For a month or more right before/during the election this was the most important issue debated here, and resulted in a stable, brief mention of the controversy in the lead. Then suddenly, after the debate had died, someone unilaterally removed it. Talk:Donald Trump/Archive 29, Talk:Donald Trump/Archive 30, Talk:Donald Trump/Archive 31, article history. --Tataral (talk) 00:16, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
They are allegations, and it would be completely inappropriate to mention them in the lede; Wikipedia is not a tabloid rag.Zigzig20s (talk) 00:27, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
That's completely irrelevant; they are noteworthy due to the coverage of them in reliable sources (and they are extensively covered in Wikipedia too). Also, they're not really just allegations since he admitted to groping women in a recording that became public last year. The fact that he has been accused of misconduct by many women over many years, and the extent of the coverage of the controversy, makes it noteworthy. --Tataral (talk) 00:33, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
Yes, 10 days before an election--a complete coincidence I'm sure. And the tape was "locker-room talk", remember? Sorry but I think it would be extremely POV to mention these allegations in the lede.Zigzig20s (talk) 00:54, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
This (the last part of the third paragraph) is what it looked like after the election. In my opinion, the two sentences could be condensed into just one sentence and the length reduced to half the length of that version. For example (note that this is just a starting point for discussion, and that I'm very much open for other ideas/improvements to the wording)
"Trump has been accused of sexual misconduct by several women; he admitted to groping women in a 2005 recording, but denies the charge of misconduct."
--Tataral (talk) 00:21, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
Tataral, the removal of content earlier agreed on, in such a high visibility article, is a big thing. We are not a tabloid rag but we are in uncharted waters...no, we're not, and it is nothing new that there is a disagreement on what the BLP allows or not, or what is and what isn't appropriate in the lead. I am interested in the diff where that was removed, and some more precise diffs that prove consensus to keep it in would be appreciated. Drmies (talk) 00:33, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
The version Tataral linked to said this in the lead: "On October 7, a 2005 audio recording surfaced in which Trump bragged about forcibly kissing and groping women or being able to do so; multiple women accused him of similar conduct shortly thereafter. He apologized for the 2005 comments and denied the allegations, describing them as part of a wider smear campaign."Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:39, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm more interested in having a debate on the merits of including a single sentence on this now, based on its extensive coverage in reliable sources and the two Wikipedia articles that we already have devoted to this topic, than "finding the culprit" who removed it a few thousand edits ago and requiring everyone to read three lengthy archives of debate from last year. I think the original two sentences at this point would be too long and thus undue, but that one sentence would not. --Tataral (talk) 00:40, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Whatever happens with this matter, I don't think Tataral's new language is very good. It leaves out that Trump apologized, and turns braggadocio into a confession.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:58, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
For a biography of a living person, "accusations" should be considered utterly meaningless unless there is a criminal charge or a civil lawsuit attached. Anyone can make accusations about anyone for political purposes, or as part of some other effort to destroy someone's reputation. For a highly controversial figure, and however distasteful, those potential motives are magnified, and for or a national leader, even more so. Simply presenting an "accuser's" claims without the other legal documentation is not only grossly irresponsible, it is potentially libelous. The fact that any woman with any shred of evidence of misconduct against a billionaire failed to pursue her claim legally is telling. Compare the situation with Bill Cosby, who will die before his cases have been settled. If, however, Trump himself made a claim of some sort of "assault," that might be noteworthy, but without any claim of misconduct on the part of the "victim," it's certainly not material for the lead. In my view, none of the myriad accusations against Bill Clinton, e.g., would be noteworthy unless a criminal charge, civil lawsuit, or congressional investigation was involved. Generally, we must please remain objective! Best wishes Learner001 (talk) 00:55, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
"For a month or more right before/during the election this was the most important issue debated here, and resulted in a stable, brief mention of the controversy in the lead." Shows how off base we were. No doubt if "Crystal ball" edits were allowed we could have followed that by saying how it lead to Trump's landslide defeat. But the election is over and it is rare to even mention the presidential campaign in a lead beyond a brief mention. Note Barack Obama's lead: "In 2008, Obama was nominated for president, a year after his campaign began and after a close primary campaign against Hillary Clinton. He became president-elect after defeating Republican nominee John McCain in the general election, and was inaugurated on January 20." Nothing about Reverend Wright, Bill Ayers, the Birth Certificate, socialism, distributionism, anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism, his Muslim faith, taking guns away from people or any of the other "allegations" made against him by his opponents. TFD (talk) 01:43, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I don't think it belongs in the lede. It is well covered in the text, that is enough. TFD, your list of supposed "allegations" against Obama is so POV as to be soapboxing. The only thing in your list that got enough mainstream coverage to be even considered worth mentioning was Reverend Wright. I'm sure there have been many weird conspiracy theories about Trump, too, but we are not proposing to include them. --MelanieN (talk) 03:18, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
    • MelanieN, it is not soapboxing, all those issues were raised by Obama opponents and received widespread coverage at the time. The point is that U.S. presidential elections are characterized by unproved accusations about candidates. And partisan editors try to get undue emphasis on these accusations into articles. To me, this is just a repeat of 2008, except the parties are reversed. But it should not matter which candidate one happens to support, the policies should be applied the same. TFD (talk) 04:33, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
Off-topic drift about Obama — JFG talk 22:05, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
      • Um, you state "his Muslim faith" as if this was a fact, instead of a wild, crazy conspiracy theory and a BLP violation; let me be clear: there is also a difference between a serious allegation supported by some credible evidence, and a crazy conspiracy theory like the "Muslim faith" conspiracy theory. --Tataral (talk) 04:36, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
        • It is typical of polemical writers to take wording out of context to discredit other writers instead of using reasoned arguments which btw is also typical of conspiracy theorists. I said it was an "allegation." Your distinction is between allegations you happen to believe and allegations you happen to disbelieve. TFD (talk) 06:19, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
          • No, I don't accept this ludicrous attempt to normalize the "muslim faith" conspiracy theory by treating it as just as valid as the sexual misconduct allegations. The sexual misconduct allegations are supported by rational and credible evidence such as the testimony of numerous women, Trump's own, recorded admissions, and more importantly, numerous credible reliable sources reporting the allegations as serious and credible. The muslim faith allegation is a crazy and racist conspiracy theory not supported by any credible evidence, and it is treated as a crazy and racist conspiracy theory by all mainstream sources. That's the difference, which is a huge one. Also, you wrote that "Nothing about [...] his Muslim faith" had been included in the introduction; if you didn't intend to state "his Muslim faith" as a fact, your wording didn't make that very clear, and your continued insistence that it must be treated with equal seriousness as the sexual misconduct allegations doesn't help either. --Tataral (talk) 07:19, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
            • You are again using a disingenuous polemical tactic of misrepresenting what I said. I am not trying to normalize the Muslim faith conspiracy theory, I am saying that your approach to this subject is just as bad as what Republicans did in 2008. Ironically smearing political opponents failed then and it failed in the 2016 election. TFD (talk) 07:43, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
              • There is a massive difference — one is a conspiracy theory, the other is a set of allegations that have now made it into the legal system as formal charges. This is relevant, and is not in the leastest similar to the 2008 situation. We have a multitude of reliable sources covering this, and it is already clear that it should be included. Just because someone is a political figure does not mean that you can shout BLP whenever something unfavorable comes up.Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 13:27, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
                • I did not mention BLP. Under the U.S. legal system, anyone can launch a lawsuit and in fact there were lawsuits against Obama as well. Furthermore the claim that Obama attended Wright's church for 20 years was true. And your statement that this issue prompted the women's marches is false and a trivialization. TFD (talk) 20:07, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
                  • That's why I said Wright was the only comparable one. The Wright issue was factual, based on actual quotes from the people involved, and received enormous attention in the mainstream press. Everything else you mentioned - from Bill Ayers (which at least had some basis in fact but never became an issue outside the fringe) to the wildest conspiracy theories - has no place in this discussion. --MelanieN (talk) 20:37, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Include—what matters is its coverage in reliable sources, and this has been covered by enough reliable sources to merit inclusion. —MartinZ02 (talk) 13:53, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Include it. It's tremendously important and shouldn't be downplayed. Everyking (talk) 03:30, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment – I agree with Tataral that going back thousands of revisions and reviewing walls of text uttered during the campaign season would be counter-productive, and dare I say irrelevant. If we're going to argue over including or excluding a phrase about those accusations in the lead section (and if yes which phrase!), this question must be posed in proper RfC format. Until then, I'll abstain. — JFG talk 15:01, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment - Can this section be closed since there is no consensus for this change. Thank you, --Malerooster (talk) 22:25, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Taken out upon RFC discussions re UNDUE and LEDE

Tataral - to answer the initial question -- you're mistaken, the RFC consensus process ran against keeping this in the lead, it is in the template top for many Trump articles and in a lower subsection for this biographical article. It was discussed repeatedly, but in particular see Archive 31 and the Archive 35 entries. Th Sandstein note mentions reconsidering it again "after some time". Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:29, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

CREW_vs._Trump

Latest comment: 7 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

Any interested editors I could use a hand with the above article regarding Trump's COI from his businesses, and there's little doubt Sean Spicer will be involved in this. Thanks in advance for any assistance. I made it a separate article to begin with (which we can turn into a redirect if need be if we decide down the road merge it back into another article). Octoberwoodland (talk) 01:18, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

It may be too early for this; we'll have to see how much coverage it gets. It would help a lot if you would do full reference links so that we can tell where they are coming from, i.e., if they are independent reliable sources, without having to click on each link to see its source. If you aren't sure how to do full references, ask me at my talk page and I will explain. --MelanieN (talk) 01:26, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
Whatever you think is best. Octoberwoodland (talk) 04:41, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Can we remove the "political positions" section?

Latest comment: 7 years ago8 comments6 people in discussion

No major American politician has a section like this except Donald Trump. There is an entire page dedicated to this, and this page is already incredibly long. This is supposed to be biography, not a Buzzfeed "short summary of his stands" article. In essence, it's just a redaction of the main Political positions of Donald Trump article. Who is for this/against this and why? Sandiego91 (talk) 19:39, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

  • Keep – We write for WP:Readers first and a lot of readers are keenly interested in Trump's political positions. It would be utterly bizarre to have his biography talk more about Wrestlemania and The Apprentice than about Trump's economic and foreign policy! — JFG talk 21:40, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
It may be appropriate to remove some of that material also. Remember that this article long predates his presidency. That stuff looked important a few years ago; it looks a lot less so now. And we will be adding stuff to the article about his ACTIONS as president, not just his campaign positions. --MelanieN (talk) 21:46, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Remove I'm inclined to agree with you. Maybe we could keep the section title, the referral to the main article, and the first general paragraph, but delete all the details from this page. I suggest we also delete the final "platform" paragraph from the lede. These things were was appropriate when he was a candidate, but they should now be replaced by a section along the lines of "Presidency of the United States" (borrowing from the Reagan article), and a final lede paragraph summarizing his notable actions as president. We should not do a major change like this without consensus, so let's see what others say. --MelanieN (talk) 21:44, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
P.S. Responding to JFG's point above: we should probably delay a week or two even if we decide to do this. It is quite likely that a lot of readers will be flocking to this article wanting to know more about this man who has just become President of the United States, and his political positions may be important to summarize here until his presidential priorities and positions become more clear. --MelanieN (talk) 21:50, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Qualified support - The section should be dramatically shortened to a one paragraph summary of Political positions of Donald Trump (which needs attention, quite honestly). -- Scjessey (talk) 21:49, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support dramatic trim - I don't think the proper inclusion criterion is "what are readers interested in?". Saving them one click of an easily-seen wikilink is less important than sticking to biographical content, not to mention keeping the article at a manageable size. This said, I'm not the guy to do the trimming; I'm only here to create work for others.   ―Mandruss ☎ 17:23, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Please do - support dramatic trim - this is supposed to be a Biography page, major life events and significant items that affect him. So other things are a bit not-about-his-life WP:OFFTOPIC. And when there is another article, then I suggest deleting such material or possibly replace by a short mention of the other article or a see also or category link. To duplicate content significantly seems like a WP:CONTENTFORK. (Also, I don't think the policies are even known in any detail as yet, let alone that they come from or form a consistent ideology, so a lot of that seems about speculation at this time.) Cheers Markbassett (talk) 05:12, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Trump war draft

Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The wiki article says "Trump was not drafted during the Vietnam War" yet the source for that information says Trump avoided being drafted by getting a series of student deferments. Whilst saying that Trump avoided being drafted may be controversial, according to the source listed and others it is accurate, whereas saying that Trump wasn't drafted is highly misleading. A caveat could be added to the statement that he used student deferments to avoid being drafted "like many others" or something similar to show that this wasn't a rare practice, but as the wiki currently stands it fails the usual standards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Glorantha (talk • contribs) 07:53, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Some ideas for articles to add in the See Also section...

Latest comment: 7 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

Just to name a few - BoredBored (talk) 02:32, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Wait a minute, User:BoredBored. I see that you went ahead and added quite a few of these. But we are not supposed to put things in "See also" if they are already linked in the body of the text. According to WP:NOTSEEALSO, "As a general rule, the "See also" section should not repeat links that appear in the article's body or its navigation boxes." Many of the ones you added are already linked in the text, and you really should check, find which ones are already in the text - and removed them from "see also". --MelanieN (talk) 02:53, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
User:MelanieN -- I went to Donald Trump and did Ctrl+F to see if there were repeats. Now there is a list below showing which ones repeat and which ones do not:
Thanks for telling me, cuz I didn't know that :) --BoredBored (talk) 03:21, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Trimming prose

Latest comment: 7 years ago9 comments4 people in discussion

I've had a go on the first round of a much-needed trimming here. My focus was on cutting the "less important" political positions (that are discussed in detail in the article for that, and the focus in his bio really should be on the most prominent of his positions), reducing content about what meetings he's had and what his advisors have said independently, plus what other "experts" have said, because that isn't actually about Trump's stated positions. I also trimmed some of the extraneous detail from the Miss Universe and professional wrestling sections, which are probably the least important aspects for anyone who wants to learn who Donald Trump is. Posting here for transparency. Anyone have thoughts/suggestions? I'm done trimming the fat for the moment, but another round of excising the least important content is probably necessary. The WordsmithTalk to me 18:46, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, you are doing a really good job. --MelanieN (talk) 01:22, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
Great job indeed. Apart from obsolete or off-topic stuff, have you made sure that the text you removed was readable elsewhere in the policy articles? — JFG talk 23:20, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
@JFG: The wording is obviously different, but the basic facts I removed seem to be present in the other article in equal or greater detail. The WordsmithTalk to me 16:49, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Health Care Position

@The Wordsmith: I spent a fair bit of time researching Trump's positions on health care and trying to represent it fairly, and am rather disappointed that you trimmed it. I don't think the single statement by his campaign is necessarily a fully representative source on Trump's position. I think sources reflecting Trump's remarks on the topic are highly relevant and informative. I welcome comments from others. @Somedifferentstuff:? @Anythingyouwant:? @JFG:? Note: I don't watch this page, so use {{replyto}} or {{ping}} if you want me to pay attention. Sondra.kinsey (talk) 23:10, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
Sondra, such information is welcome in full at Political positions of Donald Trump. But we are trying to keep this article as primarily a biography. The "political positions" section of this article had gotten way too detailed. --MelanieN (talk) 01:22, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
@Sondra.kinsey:To echo what Melanie said, your content was well-written and informative. It would certainly be a solid addition to the article about his political positions. However, information of the type "on X date he said A, but on Y date he said B" is too detailed for the general biography. The idea is to represent his current position in as few words as possible to reasonably do so. Please don't interpret my removal as a judgment on your writing or research, and more trying to adjust the content weighting to reflect what should be in a biography like this. The WordsmithTalk to me 14:51, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
@Sondra.kinsey: Same comment: great prose for Political positions of Donald Trump; have you placed it there? We only need a couple sentences of summary here (which you are obviously free to improve). — JFG talk 22:42, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, everyone. I had completely ignored Political positions of Donald Trump, and will try to edit that article on this topic within the next few days. Sondra.kinsey (talk) 12:10, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Is it time to re-think the "false" comment in the lede?

Latest comment: 7 years ago67 comments25 people in discussion

(Restored from archive until RfC stemming from this discussion is closed) — JFG talk 17:50, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

In reading through the entire lede section, it strikes me that the last two sentences:

Many of his statements in interviews, on social media and at campaign rallies have been controversial or false. Several rallies during the primaries were accompanied by protests, while more nationwide protests followed his election to the presidency.

...seem out of place. They were appropriate while he was a candidate, and might still be appropriate if candidacy was as far as he got. They have survived per consensus developed during the campaign. But now that this is becoming a biographical article about a soon-to-be president of the U.S., they seem a little jarring, a little bit "what is this doing there?" - something whose relevance may have passed. The material is already present in the text and should remain, but might it be time to remove it from the lede? Should we have another RfC to see if consensus has changed? --MelanieN (talk) 17:29, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

No. Many of the statements have been false and easily verified as such. We don't censor Wikipedia and it seems rather important for someone who is going to be President.Casprings (talk) 17:42, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
There was a minority school of thought that we should avoid making content decisions based on the fact that the election was impending, and I don't mind being in that minority. It would follow that we should avoid making content decisions based on the fact that the election is past. If his pattern was motivated by his desire to win the election, and it changes now, one could argue that the content is stale and less relevant, but that remains to be seen. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:50, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
Since the election hubbub died down, several questions have been asked by uninvolved readers about this specific part of the lede, so a new discussion is probably warranted. The essential differences of opinion seem to be whether that statement should be attributed rather than stated in WP voice, and whether the perennial "or false" should just go and leave "controversial", which nobody denies. I fear a long discussion…   — JFG talk 17:58, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Absolutely not. MelanieN, I'm really surprised that you would propose this. Falsehoods don't become truths, and their significance doesn't diminish, because the subject is becoming President. If anything, the past several weeks have shown that he continues to make false statements.- MrX 18:54, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
  • No The false things he said as a candidate don't suddenly become true now. He's continued the same patterns of falsehoods since becoming President-elect. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:01, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment - I changed "have been controversial or false" to "were controversial or false" because we're in a campaign context there. I saw that as an uncontroversial edit, but some may disagree, saying that it implies that the pattern has ended. I don't think it necessarily implies that and I stand by the edit while being revertable. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:13, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
Comment : It would be nice to see the actual quotes in their entirety. Did Trump make the general statement that he opposed nuclear proliferation and later qualified that a 'couple' of countries however might be better off e.g.given the situation with North Korea? Did Trump actually make the flat out and obtuse claim that "more counties should acquire nuclear weapons"? To whom did he make this comment? It's hard to determine exactly what's going on here going by this highly partisan and clearly anti-Trump web-cite. Looks like one of Trump's many gutter-snipes were trying to make 2+2 look like 100. Are there neutral sources that outline this affair and give us Trump's first quote, in context, and then compares it to Trump's allegedly contradictory second quote, in context? -- Gwillhickers (talk) 01:52, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Mixed feelings. Yes.
The claim that many of Trump's statements were "controversial or false" may act as a helpful flag to alert the reader that this is very much a C-class article. Most readers can easily spot the logical fallacy. According to CMOS, "one of the statements joined by the conjunction ["or"] ... may [itself] be false." (¶ 5.198, Disjunctive Conjunctions.) Cf. Lunsford, 4th ed., under "Flashpoints of Logical Argument: Equivocation". Illustration: Many of MelanieN's statements have been controversial or false. (As far as I know, however, none of them have been false.)
The article body cites two reputable sources for the claim that "many of his statements have been" controversial or false. Both sources are dated December 21, 2015. According to CMOS, the present perfect tense "denotes an act, state, or condition that ... continues up to the present".
Also, the article body cites Bezos's newspaper as a reputable source for a claim about one of Clinton's several adversaries. --Dervorguilla (talk) 03:04, 7 December 2016 (UTC) 03:11, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Yes I've voiced my concerns here. The closer of the first RFC stated "my reading of the discussion is that most who addressed it were of the view that inline attribution of an assessment of Trump's statements as "false" is required by policy." This has not been done. The statement is not citing an example, but generalizing the body of Trump's statements. "Many of his statements" is a judgement quantifying a large quantity of his statements as false, relative to truth. We have sources that support that view, which is fine, but there are sources that report disagreement with it as well. The sentence is expressing an opinion (or assessment) about facts and thus should be attributed - or at the least, not spoken in Wikivoice. Morphh (talk) 03:58, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Yes – The lead is not the place to make a blanket characterization of a person's trustworthiness, in WP's voice to boot. I said that before the election and I'll repeat it afterwards, and I did say it for both candidates who were painted as liars during the campaign. The campaign section of Trump's bio is worded more carefully than the lead: it makes appropriate, quantified and attributed statements on Trump's "truthful hyperbole". Nevertheless the lead should convey some sense of the controversial and inflammatory nature of Trump's campaign. Here's a suggestion to amend the text:

His campaign received unprecedented media coverage and international attention due to his unconventional policies, controversial statements and bolsterous style.

Would this be an acceptable turn of phrase? — JFG talk 07:44, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
No. We went through an RfC that had wide participation, was based on reliable sources, and rebutted every argument made so far in this discussion.- MrX 17:09, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
Yes. This phrase is much better. Ag97 (talk) 17:40, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
Yes, Trump is prone to hyperbolic statements. I have seen this stated elsewhere and was going to mention it, thx JFG for articulating my thoughts Raquel Baranow (talk) 17:45, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Yes -- One sided and highly contested claims don't belong in the lede. Generally agree with JFG's proposal here. This is certainly more neutral and doesn't try to present issues with many variables involved as absolute fact as many of the partisan "sources" attempt to do. However, I have to wonder about "unprecedented media coverage". (Even more than Obama's campaign??) Since when has the media 'not covered' presidential campaigns as much as Trump's? Who made this claim? The media? Anyway, JFG is on the right track. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:30, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
Comment : If any 'fact' is provable, we'll need more than the say so of the sort of article that is too often used to cite these things. Re: Trump's quotes about nuclear proliferation, I asked for clarity, quotes, context, and all we're getting here is the recital of evasive and generic claims that doesn't address Trump's actual quotes. And any "fact" can be taken out of context and presented in a misleading way, as is so often practiced by the media. We'll need to see the actual quotes, in context, before we entertain the machinations of disgruntled gutter snipes and jump leap to their conclusions. Thanx. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 22:41, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
Please consult the RfC and the sources presented therein, including Pulitzer prize wining publications that gave very specific details. Most of us are tired of proving this over and over, and we are moving well into WP:DEADHORSE territory at his point.- MrX 22:51, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
Since you apparently can't supply the actual before and after quotes, in context, you telling me to 'go fish'. Sure. Yes, we need to keep opinionated accounts of any false statements out of the lede, and elsewhere, unless there is absolute proof, presented in context. Thanx again. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 23:12, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
Demanding more an more proof, and exceptional proof beyond what is required by our policies, for something that has been settled by consensus is tendentious, and is not conduct that is acceptable in articles about U.S. politics. Please stop doing that.- MrX 16:33, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
WP:BLP: "any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be explicitly attributed". As you said, it's being challenged over and over again, thus by your own words and BLP policy, it must be explicitly attributed. Morphh (talk) 16:11, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
You conveniently omitted "... which is usually done with an inline citation."- MrX 16:28, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
"explicit attribution" is not the same as "inline citation" - they're not exclusive. A citation is always required - fact or opinion. Inline attribution, saying who "explicitly" makes the claim, is done for challenged material. Morphh (talk) 17:15, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
Your attempted interpretation of this sentence is baffling to me. It says, "All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be explicitly attributed to a reliable, published source, which is usually done with an inline citation." - MrX 18:44, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
I read explicit attribution as a reference to WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV and separate from the accompanying footnote. The phrase "which is usually done with" means the attribution is done along with the citation to substantiate it. Morphh (talk) 19:14, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
Further reading takes me to WP:BLPSOURCES though, which doesn't contain the same "explicit" term that makes me think "inline". It doesn't help that attribution has multiple meanings on Wikipedia. Morphh (talk) 19:24, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
Agree that that needs clarification. My understanding of the word attribution is that it refers to prose like "according to". But that can't possibly mean that we can't use wiki voice for anything that has been challenged regardless of the merit of the challenge. Challenges are cheap and easy. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:44, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Yes -- This statement is highly biased. Every politician says some things that are false. The FBI director accused Hillary Clinton of lying, so why isn't that in the lead of her article? Wikipedia is so biased, this website is a complete joke. Ag97 (talk) 17:34, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Yes -- But not only in the lead. A good example is his claim that millions of people voted illegally being "false". It's false that he has absolute evidence of it, but it's otherwise completely plausible based on self reporting surveys of illegals voting in past elections and intentions to vote in this one (between 13 and 15%). Yet in this article and other media reports, it is described as a "false claim". It is an unproven claim, but you cannot anymore claim it is false than he can assert it is absolutely true. Another his saying it's false the Clinton campaign started birtherism. They absolutely floated it during the 2008 primaries. Whether this means Clinton herself had a hand in it or not, there's no concrete evidence of that, but you'd have to assume she'd given the OK for the various fishing expeditions and leaking to the press her campaign did about Obama's origins. So again, it is not "false" - it is "disputed". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.132.10.250 (talk) 18:33, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
Comment : Trump's concern for illegal voting certainly has a lot of basis, given the fact that outfits like ACORN (which was disbanded in 2010 after mounting public exposure) had a long history {1, 2 3, 4, 5) of voter registration fraud, who concentrate their efforts in the big cities and have been indicted and/or convicted on numerous occasions for their dirty deeds. There are recent events to consider also. 1, 2. When you consider that the Democrats stonewalled the effort to require identification for voter registration it should come as no surprise that many of Clinton's votes could possibly be fraudulent. There is already a media/source war going on about the affair. Expressing a reservation about this sordid affair is not making a false statement, and referring to Trump's reservations about voter fraud as a "false statement" is actually the false statement. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 23:12, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
This is, simply put, fringe-theory nonsense. No reliable or credible source anywhere supports the idea that Trump's statement "certainly has a lot of basis." To the contrary, the universe of reliable journalistic and academic sources addressing this point unambiguously describe the claim as false and without evidence. See Washington Post ("a bogus claim," "unsubstantiated"); CNN ("without evidence," "no evidence"); Fortune ("Studies Contradict Trump Claim That Voter Fraud Is 'Very, Very Common'"); FactCheck.org ("unsubstantiated urban myths"). Neutralitytalk 23:41, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, given the long sordid history of provable voter fraud, and the blocked attempts to require identification for voter registration, this just comes off as partisan denial. Again, referring to Trump's concerns about voter fraud as "false statements" or "fringe" are the false statements. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 23:48, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
OK, so you have no response at all to the expert assessment. Let me sum up my reaction: you are entitled to your belief, but it is empirically false and should carry zero weight in deciding what content to include in this encyclopedia. Neutralitytalk 00:08, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
There is unfortunately a very very big difference between an expert opinion based on minimal observation in this particular case and something being "empirically false." The only way we could make such a statement would be if there were a thorough review of the matter which made basically the same statement. I am no particular fan of Trump, but I do think that statements by media prior to or without thorough investigation are a long way from being "empirical" facts. John Carter (talk) 00:34, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment I am still waiting to see if there is a need to re-open this discussion, but I do object to the proposed wording from JFG. Where are the Reliable Sources to support the phrase "boisterous style"? If we remove "false" we should simply leave the sentence as "many of his statements... have been controversial." Or else we could qualify it with something like "many of his statements... have been controversial, and some have been characterized by multiple commentators as false". In the meantime Morphh makes a good point about attribution, and I will add something. --MelanieN (talk) 23:06, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
I think that there have been at least a few sources discussing his off-the-cuff presentation and sometimes possibly willfully inflammatory comments. Alternately, maybe replacing "false" with "inaccurate" or something similar might work. "False" might be seen by some as more strongly indicating the willful inaccuracy of statements than the word "inaccurate" might. John Carter (talk) 23:28, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
I stole the phrasing suggested by MelanieN, many controversial + some false, and put together my own variation in a suggestion down further below. I believe that the questions are now the following: #1, do we have enough support to change from many-controversial-or-false, to a new version which has many-controversial-and-some-false. Question #2, is there enough support to insert a sentence, or a sentence-clause, which links the many-controversial-statements portion with the unprecedented-media-coverage-portion, as suggested by JFG and then stolen-and-re-suggested in an altered form by myself below, with cites. I think that question#0, on whether to remove 'false' entirely and just say 'controversial' is unlikely to get adopted; I also think that replacing false with inaccurate, is a non-starter, but I don't care much one way or the other, if somebody wants to officially pose that as a proposal then we can see what happens. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 22:39, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
  • No - The falsehoods were not just a major theme of his campaign, but also a major part of his life and career, and historically significant. Additionally, the importance of the falsehoods continues afterward. For example, the sources report that Trump's unambiguously false post-election claim that there was massive voter fraud, and that he actually won the popular vote, is without precedent in U.S. history. See, e.g., Yahoo News ("stunning" ... "remarkable and unprecedented for a victorious presidential candidate to claim widespread voter fraud"); Politico ("an unprecedented rebuke of the U.S. electoral system by a president-elect and met with immediate condemnation from voting experts," quoting Richard L. Hasen); CNN ("It's an unprecedented allegation by a president-elect."). Given all this, it should be in the lead section. Neutralitytalk 23:36, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
Given all what? Trump has concerns about voter fraud, and justifiably so. Can you show us the actual quote where Trump says there was cases of documented voter fraud, or can all you provide us are the concerns he expressed? Sorry, only provable facts should be considered for the lede, not partisan out of context sniping. Trump believes vote fraud played a role. No one can prove this, but otoh, is there proof that his concerns are, in fact, wrong? Expressing a belief is not a false statement unless you can prove it to be wrong. Let's be clear about that distinction. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 23:54, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
This is literally a textbook example of the argument from ignorance (no, you can't make a wild claim and then demand that objectors "prove a negative"). In any case, it's clear that nothing will ever change your mind, including the universal assessment of the experts. See PolitiFact: "Experts dismissed the substance of Trump’s tweet. 'This is patently false,' said Costas Panagopoulos, a Fordham University political scientist. ... Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz added, '... he is simply repeating baseless claims.'" And University of Denver political scientist Seth Masket said the claim is short on basic logic."). Neutralitytalk 00:08, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
People can make statements about their concerns all they like, and given the history of voter fraud in the past, expressing such a concern is understandable. Basic probability evidently escapes Mr. Masket. Trump's concerns have a basis in past events and are justified. Q. What's to stop an illegal immigrant from registering to vote? A. Not a thing. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 00:20, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Yes. I have been against the addition of this from the very beginning and my stance will not change now that he is president. --Chase | talk 00:02, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
  • YES - Unless we are going to go through all politician pages and add this comment it is not only irrelevant but extremely biased and was written for that reason. That's not even considering the fact that the source is PolitiFact, owned by Tampa Bay Times which endorsed Hillary Clinton and PolitiFact has its own history of bending the truth. Some of the claims included in the source turned out to be true. The argument that "this is a trait of his whole life" is biased and anyone exhibiting that should be blocked from editing this page because they seem incapable of separating their opinions from academic record. If this is to be an encyclopedia and not just a soap-box for the internet to shout from then all bias needs to be removed from the statement. -- The fact that this is even a matter of debate ought to demonstrate that the statement does not belong. Velostodon (talk) 15:57, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
This is a gross violation of WP:AGF, WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL. The line but extremely biased and was written for that reason makes this a broad-based, unprovoked attack against many editors. Objective3000 (talk) 16:09, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
Comment : This is getting so typical: Avoid the issue and fire away with accusations. Velostoden makes a very valid point and has not personally attacked anyone, and he/she certainly has not pushed the envelope of civility or violated any other guidelines. If the same few editors exhibit a continued trend to include the negative and block the positive, and repeatedly use clearly partisan sources to support their effort, then they forfeit AGF considerations and should be called on this behavior. Having said that, a general criticism about bias was made and no personal accusations were ever made as was done just now. Trying to bully editors with opposing views with such exaggerated accusations is not the way to go here at Wikipedia. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 17:11, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Yes, Velostodon ignored the issue and fired away with accusations. He specifically stated that editors purposely added bias and should be blocked without a shred of evidence. You added to this because you don't like a WP:RS. Again, this is not the place to debate WP:RS. Edits like this are not usefule Objective3000 (talk) 17:27, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, some of the sources are clearly biased, and as such, editors have a right to express their concerns when they are used to prop up opinion. While Velostoden may have used a broad brush in reference to editors, he/she was not off the mark with the way things are often censured or selected in the article. I will say this much, calling for a block was not called for. Any issues can be resolved here on the talk page. Face it, this is a controversial topic and feelings, whether veiled or obvious, seem to be playing a role in what's allowed. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:05, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
Take it to WP:RSN. Objective3000 (talk) 18:17, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
Discuss content not editors. Generally, when you start talking about "same few editors" etc. you've sort of conceded the argument.Volunteer Marek (talk) 17:20, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
Comment. Please keep bias out of the lede and elsewhere in the article. If there are facts to be presented they will speak for themselves. We have already seen accusations that Trump's warranted concern for voter fraud constitute a "false statement" and a willingness to stick this sort of thing in the lede. No thanks. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 17:31, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
Note that being reported is not the primary issue or even inclusion. The primary issue is taking a generalization, making an assessment as to quantity of lies compared to truth, and then stating it as fact in WikiVoice, like we're saying the capital of France is Paris. There is disagreement on quantity and what qualifies as a lie - we have sources that dispute the assessment. How is this not attributed in any way? You're absolutely right that Trump's difficult relationship with "the truth" and "facts" is something that's been well reported and their assessment is a valid one, but that is what it is.. a judgement, which when generalized and quantified is a disputed one. Morphh (talk) 18:19, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
No editor, including myself, is above criticism. And alas, you have just made your own criticism about me. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:09, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
Bastun may be referring to the message of the essay Wikipedia:Don't bludgeon the process, which I believe is widely accepted. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:30, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
Let Gwillhickers comment. I don't see any badgering here or anything, just a back and forth, which is fine. Whether it's effective is another matter, but please don't say it's not "desirable", at least not yet, after a couple of comments. Thank you. Drmies (talk) 18:34, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
It's not "a couple" of comments, it's eight comments after those of five other editors, and is a definitely a case of WP:BLUDGEON. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 16:22, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
  • No. There has already been an RfC regarding the sentence. The statement is an objective truth and has been repeatedly proven as such, with further sources having been added for it earlier today. It is also highly relevant given that he is the President-elect. This dispute is a textbook dead horse. AndrewOne (talk) 21:19, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Tricksy but does need improvement. "Many of his statements... have been controversial or false." We can elide discussion of the 'controversial' bit and simply consider whether or not wikipedia should say in wikipedia's voice that "many of his statements have been false" ... with some wikipedians preferring to go with the even stronger variation that "many of his statements were false" from comments in this RfC. It is undoubtedly correct to say that Trump has made at least one false statement, at some point in time. It is undoubtedly correct to say that Trump has made at least one truthful statement, at some point in time. Thus the real question is not whether we should say false, the real question is whether we should characterize MANY of his statements as false. This is a question of relative quantity. Politicians make many false statements. Trump is a politician. Thus, Trump makes many false statements. That is invalid logic. Correct logic goes like this: Compared to other candidates, Trump made many controversial statements, and a relatively large number [compared to other candidates] were called out as being false. Now, that's pretty wordy, and we can trim the wording slightly, but only if we don't mutate the meaning. The current short sentence, which flat out says "Many of his statements... false" is being TOO BRIEF to give the readership a correct understanding. But I suggest there is a wider concept we need to convey: Trump is known for cleverly using Truthful Hyperbole as a means of standing out from the crowd (sixteen major candidates for the nomination), but also as a means of getting attention, and specifically as a means of manipulating the media into giving him earned coverage. Trump is saying controversial things ON PURPOSE, more than not. (Don't have a cite for that handy however -- so we cannot speak of intent -- but we CAN speak of impact/outcome.) My suggestion is that we say something like this:

"Compared to other candidates, Trump made many controversial statements, and a relatively large number were criticized as being outright false.[1] Partly as a result,[2] and partly due to his existing status as a celebrity, Trump received more media coverage than any candidate[2][3][4] (perhaps[citation needed] ever)."

References

  1. ^ Add some cites which cover this; there is no shortage of media outlets calling Trump a liar.
  2. ^ a b http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/media-study-trump-helped-clinton-hurt-224300 '...Trump exploited their lust for riveting stories...'
  3. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/upshot/measuring-donald-trumps-mammoth-advantage-in-free-media.html?_r=1&mtrref=undefined
  4. ^ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/09/20/is-the-media-biased-toward-clinton-or-trump-heres-some-actual-hard-data/
For example, one of his very first controversial statements was that as potus he would build a wall, and make Mexico pay for it. He gave no explanation for how. He published no plan to make it happen. It almost sounds nonsensical, and causes double-takes: did he *really* say that? He did say it. It did draw attention. Whether it was true or not remains to be seen, but I will note that NAFTA is likely to be re-negotiated. The bit about Trump already being a celebrity was also important -- when a random crazy person says something that sounds nonsensical, the media does not cover it, but when a billionaire with a long history in the entertainment business says it, front page news is the outcome. "Boisterous style" ain't the half of it, in other words. Trump is unlike almost all potus candidates in 2016, and arguably unlike all potus candidates of any prior cycle, in that by saying controversial things he *got* media coverage, rather than the usual strategy exemplified by Clinton of avoiding unfavorable coverage and limiting media exposure generally. He spent so little money on paid media coverage, because he didn't need it. This was not an accident; it was a direct consequence of his Truthful Hyperbole,™ which served him well in his real estate career, served him well in television career, and served him well in his potus campaign. It is part and parcel of the biographical subject, that not only did he "say controversial things" but that he stoked controversy so much his motto might as well have been Tweet Brashly And Carry A Big Schtick. Wikipedia needs to convey some of this core truth to the readership; anybody can tell a lie, but Trump has what can only be described as a vast talent. "Whoever can change public opinion, can change the government, practically just so much." (Which is straight from Honest Abe.) 47.222.203.135 (talk) 20:24, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Conclusion: It looks to me as if this is controversial enough to require a new RfC. I have adopted some of the suggestions here to propose four options. See below. --MelanieN (talk) 23:45, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

No. That someone becomes US President doesn't change atomic fact. Numerous fact checkers have investigated and rejected the veracity of such notable campaign statements. 'False' is actually a pretty padded descriptor of untrue assertions, otherwise more colloquially known as 'lies.' 71.91.30.188 (talk) 02:39, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Whether Russia's/Putin's involvement should be mentioned in the lead

Latest comment: 7 years ago22 comments16 people in discussion

At this point, it's clear that the lead should mention the fact that Putin ordered an influence campaign to get Trump elected, as US intelligence reports have officially concluded

The controversy over this matter is massive (and probably more extensive than any other topic related to Trump after the election), and its relevance/impact is clear. --Tataral (talk) 22:44, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

No. This story is due in the 2016 election page, in Russia–United States relations and in the various leaks pages (DNC, Podesta, Wikileaks), not in Trump's bio. — JFG talk 00:33, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
Not here. Somewhere in his campaign article. Definitely in the articles mentioned by JFG. Objective3000 (talk) 01:33, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
No, anything that could be in any perceived to be negative to Trump must be hidden away. No matter that a foreign government interfering with a U.S. election and the beneficiary of that interference berates his intelligence agencies rather than the perpetrators would be a hugely significant aspect of anyone's biography, we shall hide it! BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 12:06, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
Did you miss the 24/7 discussions about Trump's alleged sexual assault cases or how we hamfisted Hillary winning the popular vote into the lead of everything. Be reasonable, one thing getting denied isn't the end of the world. Archer Rafferty (talk) 16:36, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a mouthpiece for U.S. intelligence and can only describe their conclusions as they are described in reliable sources. Furthermore, U.S. intelligence has not concluded that the Russians had any influence on the outcome of the election, only that they intended to. TFD (talk) 18:04, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
All of those reliable sources immediately above are obviously not truthy enough to serve as RS in a Trump article, and the U.S. intelligence service concluding that the Russians intended to bigly boost Trump's chances of election by hacking U.S. political targets but he doesn't think the intelligence services are correct or that it's serious should obviously not be in the article dealing with the C-in-C of the U.S. military. Stands to reason. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 19:02, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
@Bastun: The sources are fine, the target article is not. — JFG talk 20:12, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
Agree Russian involvement is extremely historically significant and should be mentioned. Casprings (talk) 20:29, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
Agree His Russian ties and potential conflicts are probably the most important recent developments about him as a president elect. Daaxix (talk) 00:14, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

CNN has a new article about the 10 things intel agrees. One of them is not that they wanted Trump. One of them was them they wanted to destabilize democracy and make a mockery of elections. It could be that they hate both of them but were happy when they beat the pollsters, who predicted a Hillary win.

WP should take a stance like CNN and not make up conclusions not proven. Chris H of New York (talk) 14:57, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Harris, Shane; Youssef, Nancy A. (October 27, 2016). "The U.S. Cyberwar With Russia Will Wait for President Hillary Clinton". The Daily Beast.
OK I am changing from oppose to neutral for now. I see your point. SPECIFICO talk 19:46, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 3 February 2017

Latest comment: 7 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Mowasapedo (talk) 15:37, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
  Not done Please specify what edit you want us to make. --MelanieN (talk) 15:41, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Edit Request: Neil Gorsuch

Latest comment: 7 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Can we put in the article--in the First 100 Days section a link to this Wikipedia article: Neil Gorsuch Supreme Court nomination. Since this article only provides the fact that Trump nominated Gorsuch, correctly, then we should give the reader a place to go to get more information on the nomination process for Gorsuch--just a link to the other Wikipedia article.--SlackerDelphi (talk) 20:13, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

The word "nominated" already links to that article. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:19, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 1 February 2017

Latest comment: 7 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

At the end of the second paragraph of this entry, the article says "controversial or false" but this is wrong. Please remove the "or false" section from this politically biased, deliberately incorrect article. 2601:581:C000:FBC0:6510:EA8D:8E8B:AEB2 (talk) 19:50, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

  Not done: Please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Boomer VialHolla 19:56, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
Please participate in the open RfC at #RfC on including "false" in the lede. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:15, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Judge Neil Gorsuch

Latest comment: 7 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Since the article is protected can an admin or other editor add Trump's nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the First 100 days section of the article? This is clearly an event that qualifies to be mentioned in Trump's main article.--SlackerDelphi (talk) 01:34, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

  Done Good suggestion, thanks. --MelanieN (talk) 01:46, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Can we add "Legal" as a category to {Donald Trump series}}?

Latest comment: 7 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion

I was thinking this cuz of the Darweesh v. Trump article, and that there might be more lawsuits to come in the future -- BoredBored (talk) 13:47, 29 January 2017 (UTC)


Oh, wait, never mind, there's already Legal affairs of Donald Trump -- BoredBored (talk) 14:07, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Donald Trump article evaluation

Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

HI. I am new to Wikipedia and just created a account for a class assignment. My first assignment was to pick an existing Wikipedia page and evaluate certain aspects of the article. I just wanted to comment how I was impressed with how updated the article already was. Donald Trump just became president a couple of days ago and it is already updated on the page. I was also impressed about the amount of citations. I clicked several of them and they all led me to the cite used. I know with political topics it is hard to stay neutral, but I found that this article was and stated straight facts rather than opinions. How this article was written is a great reference for me to use to know how to write a good article on Wikipedia. Thanks. Hoopesha (talk) 05:11, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Splitting proposal

Latest comment: 7 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion

I propose that we split out "Early life" in order to reduce article size. —MartinZ02 (talk) 17:57, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

This particular section is not very long, and it wouldn't have much expansion in a separate article; really only makes sense in the individual's main biography article. However, there is plenty of potential to shorten the sections on Legal affairs and Political positions, which both happen to have lenghty articles. The campaign section is also quite long. I've trimmed the real estate part a few weeks ago, and a few editors tackled the political positions; we should probably wait a few more weeks to see how those positions get applied in practice, then we can write a concise summary. I would really recommend trimming the Legal affairs section if you feel so inclined… Also, there is some redundancy about bankruptcies, first mentioned in the Casinos section, then in a dedicated section. — JFG talk 20:18, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
If we are going to split out certain sections, "Early life" should not be one of them. An "early life" section belongs in every biography. I concur with JFG about removing almost all of the "Political positions" section (see discussion above, "Can we remove the "political positions" section?") - not immediately, but after a week or two, after the enormous surge of interest in this article (4.4 million page views yesterday) has died down a little. --MelanieN (talk) 00:37, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
@MelanieN: I don't propose that we remove the section, only that we split out some of its content, make a spin‐off article out of that content, while leaving a summary of the spin‐off article in the main article. So "Early life" will still be left, it just won't be as large. —MartinZ02 (talk) 16:40, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
There is a lot of other content that is more deserving of a fork, because it is not directly part of his biography. In particular political positions, business affairs, legal affairs, etc. already have forks so they can be severely trimmed in this article. "Early life" is an essential part of his biograpy and I don't think it is a good candidate for forking. --MelanieN (talk) 16:43, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Extended confirmed protection

Latest comment: 7 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I do not have the article on my watchlist (pls ping me if needed), and after answering a WP:RFPP request today I studied the recent history and came to the conclusion that extended confirmed protection is needed. I am aware of the fact that it was several days ago reduced to semi, but I see in recent history clear vandalism-only accounts which should not be editing this article. Therefore I enhanced the protection level to extended confirmed, hopefully this will be sufficient.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:51, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

@Ymblanter: Thank you! As it reverted to semi it became clear that wasn't enough. --MelanieN (talk) 17:31, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Residences

Latest comment: 7 years ago14 comments4 people in discussion

I can't seem to find a section in this article or that of his family about their various homes. Shouldn't such a section exist, perhaps within a description of his personal life or family? ɱ (talk) · vbm · coi) 03:42, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

No.--Malerooster (talk) 04:28, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
Such a curt reply can be taken as pretty rude. I'm not a novice here and you don't appear to be either, so why the disdain? Care to explain why you say no? Most major biographies describe where the person lives or lived, even if it's a city and not details about their house. ɱ (talk) · vbm · coi) 05:29, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
@ɱ, because its a stupid idea. --Malerooster (talk) 20:27, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
A dedicated section seems like a bit much. We talk about the "mock tudor" home where he grew up, his residence at Trump Tower, his residence at Mar a Lago, his residence at the White House. It might be worth giving a number to indicate how many other homes he owns (if any). Do you know what that number is?Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:59, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
Yeah I noticed that mentions of his homes are scattered around, but there should be a few sentences dedicated to his residences. There are many very good sources that list all of them (I believe 6 residences total) and many more sources that talk about the details of individual homes of his. I comment because I noticed his large estate in Bedford, New York is not mentioned on any Trump articles and should be. ɱ (talk) · vbm · coi) 07:18, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
The home in Bedford is discussed at Foreign policy of Donald Trump, in a context that gives it significance (Ghadaffi camping out on the lawn). Let's face it, the guy owns a lot of stuff, and I would suggest that, if you want to list them, a separate new list might be in order.Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:28, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
I figured that bit might've been mentioned somewhere, but only looked for likely places providing a list/prose description of residences. Do you think I should create a section on this article or on "Family of Donald Trump", or do you have a better idea? ɱ (talk) · vbm · coi) 08:14, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
Here's a better idea: put the info at List_of_residences_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States.Anythingyouwant (talk) 08:50, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
All of Trump's properties are businesses and he has apartments in at least two of them, in Trump Tower and Mara Lago. I don't see any reason to have a section on these. There are already articles on both these properties and many of his other properties. TFD (talk) 09:09, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
Anythingyouwant - that would be improper because that article merely lists the residences, and doesn't describe any of them in any detail. The Four Deuces - you're wrong; the house I just mentioned, Seven Springs, was never a commercial enterprise (though sure it was proposed to be); neither was his Greenwich estate, and likely other current or former homes. ɱ (talk) · vbm · coi) 17:23, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

The list of presidential residences is still a good place to start.Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:44, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Anyone is free to edit Draft:Residences of Donald Trump if they wish to! There's a list of good references that can be used at the bottom. ɱ (talk) · vbm · coi) 00:57, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
Trump bought Seven Springs in order to turn it into a golf course. He now plans to subdivide the lot. He has never lived there, although his sons stayed in the carriage house when they were working on the main house. He did not buy the property a a personal residence and has never resided there. He once rented it out to Gaddafi. There is a difference between a residence (where someone resides) and a residential property acquired for commercial purposes or used for commercial purposes. It would be interesting to see how he treat the property in his tax returns. TFD (talk) 20:52, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

He is no longer a businessman

Latest comment: 7 years ago15 comments9 people in discussion

He has resigned from the Trump organization on January 19, 2017.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/23/news/donald-trump-resigns-business/

207.245.44.6 (talk) 22:10, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

 Y Added! Yoshiman6464 ♫🥚 22:15, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
  Reverted — He hasn't resigned. There are some major issues here that should be discussed before we add anything. See:
Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 22:19, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
Trump is still a businessman. He has given up management authority, but he still owns it all. --MelanieN (talk) 01:10, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
The Trump organization does not belong to Donald Trump. He was promoted to president of the Trump organization in 1971. He has resigned from that post and replaced by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. He receives pension from the Trump organization, but he is in no way an owner of it.
104.219.203.179 (talk) 02:50, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
See WP:CITE - If this is the case then it should be easy to find a RELIABLE third-party source for it! Twitbookspacetube (talk) 04:13, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
Kinda makes a person wonder: if Trump doesn't own the Trump Organization - if he was just a hired president - then who DOES own it? (Echo answers, who?) The answer is: he wasn't "promoted" to president by some outside owner. He took over the business (The Trump Organization, which is really an umbrella for multiple investments and properties), gave himself the title of president, and expanded it till it now includes 400 or 500 different entities. Most or all of them are LLCs, in some cases wholly owned by Trump, in some cases by Trump with partners or possibly residual owners from pre-1971. We really don't know any details because he hasn't released his tax returns, and everything is done as LLCs which are very private, rather than corporations which might have a more transparent operation. --MelanieN (talk) 05:13, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
I guess some of the commenters here have it backwards: Trump is still the owner of The Trump Organization but he has given away management to his two sons, who were previously vice presidents. Note that Ivanka resigned as well (she used to be a VP there). — JFG talk 21:58, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
To MelanieN's comment: All the assets owned by Trump were reported in his FEC financial disclosure form (see article: Pursuant to regulations, Trump published a 92-page financial disclosure form listing all his assets, liabilities, income sources and hundreds of business positions.[1] It's true that co-owners of some partnership structures, where Trump is not directly or indirectly the sole shareholder, are not disclosed there, but by the same logic they wouldn't be mentioned on Trump's tax returns either. — JFG talk 22:06, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Donald Trump Personal Financial Disclosure Form 2015" (PDF). The Washington Post.
It's the shame the FEC disclosure gives hardly any information. It would be interesting to know details of his creditors, including foreign governments, businesses and individuals, who might use their position to curry favor with His Royal Highness. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:18, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
As a commercial real estate developer, he likely borrows from banks, not governments or other businesses. But yes it would be nice to see where from. A few sources have mentioned some banks he deals with but I can't be bothered to dig them out today (and that would be too much detail for the biography article). In their billionaire rankings, Forbes has compiled the amount of outstanding debt per project, but they don't say which banks are involved. — JFG talk 23:14, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
He's probably not a "television personality" any more. Should it be "former television personality"?--Jack Upland (talk) 23:19, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
@Jack Upland: This variant was briefly discussed at Talk:Donald Trump/Archive 44#"Former" in lead sentence, consensus was to remove "former". — JFG talk 17:34, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
OK, but then, if we keep TV personality, we need to keep businessman because that is one of the things he is famous for.--Jack Upland (talk) 21:51, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
Absolutely. Consensus is well-established to keep businessman, TV personality and politician, in that order. — JFG talk 23:03, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Darweesh v. Trump

Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

For any interested editors please feel free to review and enhance the above article. Octoberwoodland (talk) 23:36, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

A student assignment

Latest comment: 7 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Yes. All sources are cited and from reliable sources.

Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added? No. Everything is up to date, including information on Trump's acts as President.

Sean Morrow 1/28/17 Seanmorrow8 (talk) 17:51, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

  • Seanmorrow8, I made this a separate section--it was somewhat randomly thrown in. This article is not a very challenging one for this assignment, since there are so many editors involved and so many viewers. It is more exciting to pick an article that is not constantly scrutinized. Drmies (talk) 01:29, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

"controversal or false"-campaign-statements

Latest comment: 7 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

In my opinion, the intro-section of the article is biased. It states that "Many of his statements in interviews, on social media, and at campaign rallies were controversial or false". This might be true, but every politician lies or "bends the truth" to a certain degree. However, the article makes it seem like Trump is the only person to ever be elected President after "lying" during his campaign. It's a clear form of bias. So Instead the article should say something like "Many of his statements in interviews, on social media, and at campaign rallies were considered highly controversial by the news media and a siginificant part of the American people".

Nuhr (talk) 19:16, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

See open RfC at #RfC on including "false" in the lede. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:20, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
Just to respond directly to the concern here. I think it's correct that most campaigns are full of controversial statements, so that need not be stated in the lede. What has been unique about Mr. Trump's political career is that many of his statements are demonstrably false. That has been reported as being singular and his success has been so widely attributed to his misstatments that these falsehoods should be mentioned in the lede. SPECIFICO talk 02:31, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
The 'false' is what drew concern before as going too far -- the more recent question started whether a line about late 2015 campaign period even still belongs in the lead. Plus re-discussion over whether 'false' is a POV or opinion that needs to be attributed. Markbassett (talk) 06:57, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Scope and overlap

Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Due to strong overlap between several Trump-related articles, editors may wish to contribute to the discussion at Talk:Presidency of Donald Trump#Scope of this article? — JFG talk 13:06, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

If you have any ideas on what to add to the article, please post them here!

Latest comment: 7 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion

We need to know what to improve in Donald Trump, so if you have any ideas, we'd love to hear them! — Preceding unsigned comment added by BoredBored (talk • contribs) 23:07, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Well, it's kind of self-explanatory, but I guess it won't harm anyone by reminding them twice. MB298 (talk) 02:33, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
Something that should be pinned down in an encyclopedic article about Trump's policy/presidency:
Culture:
Public Broadcasting to be privatized, while the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities are to be eliminated entirely: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/315134-dem-rep-trump-administration-will-thrust-country-into-a-new-dark-ages
Trumps understanding of art: http://www.artnews.com/2016/04/04/absolutely-gross-degenerate-stuff-trump-and-the-arts/
International security:
Beheaded U.S. embassies without replacements in line: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-fires-us-ambassadors-no-replacements-a7538256.html
Near-complete housecleaning in State Department: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2017/01/26/the-state-departments-entire-senior-management-team-just-resigned/ --84.141.20.45 (talk) 12:57, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
Good suggestions, but they should go in the "presidency" article, not this biography. --MelanieN (talk) 15:57, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
User:BoredBored, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but there really isn't a consensus here to add lots and lots of stuff to this article. On the contrary, we have been trying to reduce its unwieldy size and remove the material that is not really part of a biography. In particular we are spinning off most of the "policy" type material to other articles, such as Political positions of Donald Trump. So I have removed your "expand this section" tag from the energy policy. Your suggestions are well meant and valid, but they should go in one of the spinoff articles, not this one - which is supposed to be about Trump, the person. --MelanieN (talk) 16:03, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
Oh... well I guess my efforts are better spent editing and contributing to spin off articles.
Thanks for telling me User:MelanieN! -- BoredBored (talk) 13:22, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Should Trump be listed as a conspiracy theorist in the lead?

Latest comment: 7 years ago9 comments6 people in discussion

Trump has over the past decade, and more recently, theorized or spread conspiracy theories about political opponents. He headed the birther movement, claimed that Ted Cruz's father helped kill JFK, and most recently has claimed that there was massive voter fraud against him. Shouldn't there be a claim or at least a mention of his role in conspiracy theories? Lbdillar (talk) 01:02, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, however he is not known for being a conspiracy theorist and that has been only a small part of his career. Should he be listed as an author in the lead as well, just because he's written a few books? He is known for being President, a businessman, and host of the Apprentice. Alex Jones, on the other hand, is well known for being a conspiracy theorist. Perhaps a brief mention of the birther movement in the lead would be fine, but anything other than that is too trivial to belong in the lead. MB298 (talk) 01:08, 30 January 2017 (UTC)


There should at least be a section listing his role and belief in such theories. I would argue and be able to prove that he came to prominence given his 2011-2014 pursuit and hiring of private investigators to find obama's birth certificate. More recently, even though it is not widely accepted, he has created (theorized if you will) voter fraud accusations. Conspiracies are a large part of his life and ideas. It seems odd that there is little mention of the topic. Also, Kary Mullis (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis) not known as a Conspiracy Theorist but there are mentions of him as an AIDS and Climate Change denialist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lbdillar (talk • contribs) 01:24, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Not in the lede. Section, yes.Volunteer Marek (talk) 01:26, 30 January 2017 (UTC)


Agreed. Maybe not a lead but certainly a section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lbdillar (talk • contribs) 01:30, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Section, maybe. And let's see the wording and the sources here, before it goes into the text. Some of his conspiracy theories have already been mentioned in various places in the text; I am not convinced we need to gather them all together in a section of their own. At a minimum, we would need multiple reliable sources actually describing him as a conspiracy theorist. We can't just gather up a few instances and apply the label ourselves; that would be Original Research. --MelanieN (talk) 01:35, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

I concur. It is certainly not what he is best known for so it doesn't belong in the lead. And per BLP we would need multiple WP:RS sources using "conspiracy theorist" in reference to him to be able to put it anywhere in the article body. -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:48, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
You are seeing a pattern, which is a reasonable conclusion, but we need to show that reliable sources have seen the same thing. BTW Trump never claimed that Cruz's father helped kill JFK, he asked whether Cruz's father was one of the men photographed with Oswald. Neither of the men actually knew Oswald. His birther promotion however may perhaps be mentioned there, since it was a well-publicized activity at the time. TFD (talk) 01:59, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
Currently, we have a substantial paragraph about the "birther" movement, other than that I don't think anything is mentioned, correct me if I'm wrong... MB298 (talk) 03:30, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Photo used in election articles

Latest comment: 7 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

Not all of the articles in the category Category:United States presidential election, 2016 by state have the same photo, some of them use the cropped image, others the uncropped, shouldn't they all use the cropped image, for that's the same with Clinton's image. - CHAMPION (talk) (contributions) (logs) 01:14, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

At this page we have consensus about what image to use in the infobox for this page. Consensus at other articles may differ. You can certainly propose at other articles that they use the image that is used here, and see if there is consensus to do so. Or you could boldly change it at an article or two and see what reaction you get. --MelanieN (talk) 04:04, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
Did this not happen because of your request at Wikipedia:Bot requests#Replace Donald Trump image with presidential portrait? I added a new bot request. 80.235.147.186 (talk) 06:33, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
@Champion: They now all match. 80.235.147.186 (talk) 05:55, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Neutrality and Bias

Latest comment: 7 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

In the "2016 presidential campaign" section of this article there is a focus on the negative things President Trump has said during his campaign. Rather than presenting the positive aspects of his campaign, there is a clear bias towards portraying him in a bad light. Also, the main sources used to back up the "Russian involvement" section of this article were left wing backed news agencies. These include The New York Times, The Washing Post, and The Wall Street Journal. With regards to neutrality, these sources are far from being neutral. An underlying bias exists, but it is not noted within the section. To this article's credit, the information being presented is up to date. At this time, there are multiple edits being made every hour. Iarbi002 (talk) 03:52, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

If you didn't want the candidate's campaign to appear negative, you should have told the candidate not to run a negative campaign. Twitbookspacetube (talk) 05:13, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
WP:BIASED. EvergreenFir (talk) 06:06, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Discussion notice - Alternative facts

Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Related discussion just started at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Alternative facts. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:18, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Nonetheless

Latest comment: 7 years ago7 comments5 people in discussion

I think the use of "nonetheless" in the lede is unduly editorial:

"Many of his statements in interviews, on social media, and at campaign rallies were controversial or false. Nonetheless, Trump won the presidential election on November 8, 2016 against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, and assumed office on January 20, 2017."

Essentially, the article is saying, in Wikipedia's voice:

"Despite the fact he is a liar, he won the election."

I have only just read through the Rfc about use of the word "false"; I haven't !voted, but my preference would be for option 6, which I believe provides an appropriate buffer between WP's voice and the findings of journalists and fact-checkers on a highly sensitive issue. Similarly, I think the juxtaposition of "nonetheless" in the above fashion is incautious. I searched the current and archived talk pages and saw no discussion/consensus on the word. I believe the word to be editorial and have boldly removed it. DonFB (talk) 13:22, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Trump won despite an extraordinary level of lying, according to the preponderance of reliable sources. The use of "nonetheless" is, if anything, restrained (I think even a "however" would've been appropriate). In any case, it is fully supported by sources. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:48, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
DonFB's right. We should'nt let Wikipedia get affected by the spirit of the times, when not Wikipedia is the one mainly responsible for the shape of it. We're about an encyclopedia. --Askedonty (talk) 14:07, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
The use of "nonetheless" is synthesis. It implies that normally the most honest candidate wins U.S. elections which is questionable. It also omits the fact that Trump's opponent was also seen as untrustworthy. So we could have phrased it that he won because he was the more honest candidate.
It also misses the narrative that voters saw him as speaking a "higher truth." As Farage said, he took him seriously but not literally.
Furthermore there was selectivity in what "factcheckers" such as Clinton backer David Brock chose. He found for example that Clinton was more honest than Bernie Sanders. TFD (talk) 14:13, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
Where in the article is the juxtaposition supported? Assertions, facts or conclusions in the lede must be supported by text in the body of the article. Without explicit sourcing, the contrasting "this, but that" juxtaposition constitutes editorial synthesis in Wikipedia's voice. DonFB (talk) 14:49, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

This word arose from a VERY recent edit which did two things: combined the "campaign" paragraph and the "election" paragraph into one, and tied them together by adding "Nonetheless". Since this recent edit was challenged by DonFB's reversion (thank you), it should not be re-added unless consensus is reached to do so, per the Discretionary Sanctions. Scjessey, you should not have re-added it. (You probably didn't realize it was a recent addition.) I am going to revert it per the DS. And my opinion is that it should stay reverted - it should stay the way the lede has been for a long time. This change creates an apparent connection between "lies" and expectation of getting elected, which is basically WP:SYNTH. --MelanieN (talk) 16:20, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

@MelanieN: - You are correct in that I did not know it was a recent change. I don't really care whether or not "nevertheless" is used, but I disagreed with the rationale of the edit I reverted. But to be clear, I do think there are plenty of sources that will support the idea Trump's election victory was dependent on all the lies he told. The birther lie created a base, and then a stream of lies about Obama, Clinton, the country and its economy generated the support he needed to win. That's not really in dispute. Anyway, I'm happy with the way it is. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:47, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

May I raise a complaint in regards to protection?

Latest comment: 7 years ago11 comments7 people in discussion

I understand the need to protect this page with the bar set at the 500 edits, those are the rules and I'll abide by them. But it is terribly unfair when users such as I cannot restore perfectly valid text that user User:Sandiego91 removed (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Donald_Trump&diff=762791082&oldid=762786777), when half of ze's edits were null sandbox edits [1]. ValarianB (talk) 20:24, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

@ValarianB: It's an imperfect solution to a chronic problem on Wikipedia. If you see something like that occurring, you can always make an edit request on the article's talk page. That said, I agree with the removal of the content for now. Belongs more on First 100 days of Donald Trump's presidency or Presidency of Donald Trump. EvergreenFir (talk) 20:36, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
I hear you, Valerian. The article has gone through various levels of protection. Semiprotection used to be enough. But experience has shown it is not adequate protection now that he is president. For a few days this month (I think the 26th and 27th) it was reduced to semiprotection, and that proved completely inadequate to keep out the vandalism and the good-faith-but-against-policy changes. It was put back to extended-confirmed and may have to stay there for the duration of his presidency. That unfortunately excludes people like you, who are no threat to the article and could be productive contributors. But as Evergreen said, it's an imperfect solution to a problem that, it turned out, couldn't be solved any other way. --MelanieN (talk) 20:46, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
I don't mind so much being excluded, it is what it is, but when we see other editors apparently gaming the system while we play fair, that is the galling part. ValarianB (talk) 20:48, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
You're 4 days and 293 edits away from full participation, and those don't have to be article edits. Doesn't seem draconian. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:56, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
Back to content (sry, I'm no native speaker): I agree to @ValarianB that User:Sandiego91 removed (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Donald_Trump&diff=762791082&oldid=762786777) a text meeting notability . Hundreds or more readers / wikipedians have read the text and kept their fingers away ; Sandiego91 (active since 12 Nov 2016) deleted it. Until now, he's the only one disputing (without giving a single word for explanation) the notability of these 2 sentences (with 3 sources).
I put it in again. --Neun-x (talk) 21:01, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
I'm for its removal per #Article size - Proactive trimming and pruning above. Does not belong on the main BLP. Not notable enough at this point. EvergreenFir (talk) 21:13, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
I've reverted the good faith edit of Neun-x. Its inclusion has been challenged by an editor, and there has not yet developed a consensus to restore it to the article. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:18, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

@Mandruss:, again I wasn't so bothered by being restricted as I was by another user who appears to have purposefully made hundreds of junk or test edits just to bypass the restriction. ValarianB (talk) 15:19, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

@ValarianB: Ok, then I was misled by your heading and I apologize. If one lacks the power to address a problem, there are always others around who don't. Your post on this page could have been solely about that user instead of about page protection. If you wanted to discuss the larger issue of gaming the protection rule, Donald Trump's article is not the place to do that. The best place would probably be WP:VPP. Or, if you wanted to seek a sanction against that user, it would be WP:ANI, although I don't know how viable the complaint would be in the absence of a policy specifically prohibiting that behavior. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:29, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

@ValarianB: It could be worth asking at WP:PERM/EC, but they warn that Unless you are requesting confirmation for a legitimate alternate account your request will almost certainly be denied. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 19:56, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 6 February 2017

Latest comment: 7 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

the uncle of Jordan Alan Graham — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.138.46.23 (talk) 13:32, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

  Not done, please provide reliable sources that support the changes you want to be made. MB298 (talk) 00:21, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Alleged bathmophobia of Donald Trump

Latest comment: 7 years ago34 comments14 people in discussion
Consensus to leave it out of the article. --MelanieN (talk) 15:41, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"In the health section it states that Trump has a fear of slopes called bathmophobia, and needs holding other people's hand to negotiate a downhill.. I fear that this information that could be exploited by an enemy of the US to cause harm to the US. As Wikipedia is hosted on servers in the US I think this information should be redacted and all revisions with it deleted." - Please see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Alleged bathmophobia of Donald Trump to contribute to the discussion. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 15:52, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

User talk:Emir of Wikipedia Can you please give one vaild example of how this could be exploited by the enemy? -- BoredBored (talk) 16:03, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
Will Air Force One need to be refitted with a lift and slide? Even if unfounded, of course, it might still be notable for the fuss that it's caused - as The Daily Telegraph put it: "The 'handgate’ row threatened to become a distraction to an event that until then had gone better than some might have hoped." Is that one newspaper the only source for this? Martinevans123 (talk) 16:06, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
I don't think there's a danger of exploitation. But, I also don't see what this is doing here in the first place. Objective3000 (talk) 16:18, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
Weird accusation against him as he's been skiing in Aspen in the past. In fact, I believe he was on the slopes with his wife and Marla Maples at the same time. Not to mention, he seems totally unencumbered when going up and down the steps of his private jet and Air Force One. SW3 5DL (talk) 16:22, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
I agree with removing this. A "medical condition" sourced to an anonymous insider? How BLP violating is that? And dubious at best, since we have dozens of times seen him negotiate downhill slopes and down stairs with ease. I don't think it needs to be redacted as Emir suggests, but it should not be in the article. --MelanieN (talk) 16:31, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
How long ago was that skiing? This condition may have appeared more recently. And this wasn't an "accusation", but was "Government sources in Washington DC were suggesting". Martinevans123 (talk) 16:33, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
"Negotiating the down stairs of Air Force One" is on camera from a week ago. --MelanieN (talk) 16:34, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
Agree with Future Perfect at Sunrise's removal; anonymous source is not good enough for a BLP claim. Sam Walton (talk) 16:36, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
Presumably the best negotiation we'll ever see him achieve. Can he manage the up stairs too? Martinevans123 (talk) 16:40, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
Now, if he develops a fear of slippery slopes, that might be news. (Sorry, anyone can delete this.) Objective3000 (talk) 16:39, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
@Emir of Wikipedia: You have a weird way of trying to hide this claim from view. In order to get it redacted and out of sight, you posted about it on one of the most-watched boards on WIkipedia? And you used the allegation, stated as if it were fact, as the title of your post, to make sure that it will definitely be seen by EVERYBODY now and in the archives? (I have changed the section title to "alleged".) --MelanieN (talk) 16:41, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Just because it is mentioned in a reliable source, doesn't mean we have to include it. See WP:FART. His germaphobia is much more widely commented upon and confirmed and we don't include that. I don't see a need to include an anonymous source on some random fear that may or may not be true, even if it is reported in a RS. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:38, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Nah, Wikipedia is a self-governing community. No such thing as an executive order. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:01, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
Sure, I guess. Ask WMF Legal to do it as an Office Action and its basically law. The WordsmithTalk to me 17:04, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
What on earth are you on about Emir of Wikipedia & The Wordsmith!? Ever even heard of WP:NOTCENSORED!? Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 17:12, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
Please read WP:NOTCENSORED yourself. It doesn't say we must never remove any material from an article. It says we don't remove content just because some readers might find it offensive ("dirty" words, "obscene" pictures, "blasphemous" material, etc.) WP:NOTCENSORED specifically says that we can and do remove material to maintain Wikipedia's policies. This material was inappropriate on BLP grounds, particularly because it was not well enough sourced, i.e, not verified. --MelanieN (talk) 17:39, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
Now I must ask you to read what I wrote. No, it may not be WP:DUE to mention this in the article — but to pretend there is any case for purging the page history or talk-page is ludicrous and goes against WP:NOTCENSORED. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 17:44, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
Yes, Emir wanted it not just removed but redacted, i.e., purged from the page history. But he was the only one who suggested that, and I and others have rejected that idea. Wordsmith, like most of us, simply wanted it removed from the article. (Or did you take his sarcastic reference to WMF Legal as a real suggestion? Sarcasm can be hard to recognize online.) None of that discussion, including the "redact" suggestion, has anything to do with WP:NOTCENSORED. --MelanieN (talk) 18:15, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
… I may have missed the sarcasm, but I still contend it is within the boundaries of WP:NOTCENSORED. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 19:31, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
If the more experienced editors reject the redaction and there is Wikipedia:Consensus to just keep it removed then I am content with that. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:37, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Just to put this rumor (rumour) firmly to rest: About why he held May's hand, it seemed obvious to me that Trump, as a man of his generation, did it because he was taught that a gentleman should take a lady's hand or arm in situations like crossing streets and going down stairs. That's what the Brits are saying too: it was a "chivalrous gesture".[2] Granted, this type of gesture could be regarded as sexist by today's standards, but it certainly doesn't suggest that he has some kind of pathology. The Telegraph seems to be the only publication that found a medical reason for it, and their only basis was one anonymous insider (whom they misleadingly described as "government sources", plural). --MelanieN (talk) 17:27, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

  • Omit unless or until additional reliable sources discuss this supposed affliction. On the comedy side, however, MelanieN, you do realise that typing the first few characters of your username into a Google search, immediately finds, as the first recommendation, someone else who could be expected to hold Mr Trump's hand on many occasions? MPS1992 (talk) 19:32, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I am well aware of that. In fact, last month somebody slapped a "COI editing" notice on my talk page on the assumption that I AM Melania Trump. After we all had a good laugh I put a disclaimer on my user page. But I don't imagine I have heard the last of it. As for holding Trump's hand: better her than me. 0;-D --MelanieN (talk) 20:58, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
There's a Barbara Walters interview with Ivana Trump about how she found out about Marla Maples while she and Donald and the kids were skiing in Aspen. I'll look for it on youtube but this Gawker page has excerpts of the interview where Ivana talks about passing Donald on the slopes and seeing him with Marla, and also mentions the two of them going out of the restaurant to put on their skis, and then having an argument. [3] SW3 5DL (talk) 21:07, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
@SW3 5DL: Weren't you the one quoting WP:Tabloid above?   — JFG talk 00:51, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
@JFG: I also said that the Gawker page had excerpts of the Barbara Walters interview that was aired on ABC which is not a tabloid. So   right back at you. SW3 5DL (talk) 01:51, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RfC: How to mention Donald's children in the infobox

Latest comment: 7 years ago20 comments6 people in discussion
Clear consensus not to make this change. --MelanieN (talk) 23:04, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


Should the infobox be changed to containing only number of Donald's children in the infobox, with a "see below" link next to it and redirecting to the "Family/Personal life" section like it is done on the "featured article" of Ronald Reagan? MonsterHunter32 (talk) 18:54, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Reasons for opening the Rfc

I personally think it will be better that instead of including or not including all children even the non-notable or ones with little notability of their own, it is better to just have the number of children. The article after all is about Donald Trump, not who his children are.

Although WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE, a guideline, says to try to avoid mentioning links in the infobox, it also says that "As with any guideline, there will be exceptions where a piece of key specialised information is difficult to integrate into the body text, but where that information may be placed in the infobox." I think in these circumstances we can take an exception, instead of outright breaking it. A featured article used links in the article as an exception, so can we. And personally I think it gives the article and the infobox a more clean look. Are you okay with it if we did that? MonsterHunter32 (talk) 18:54, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Survey re Trump's children in infobox

Comment: To be honest, I was just citing a good example. It's not disallowed completely and I never said "you have to agree with it because it is used there". I'm making this comment so people don't misunderstand me. It is just a discussion and I gave a good example of a featured article's style which we can use if we want to. That is it. MonsterHunter32 (talk) 19:42, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
  • No Reagan's article seems to be the exception, not the norm, as every other article on presidents lists the children, sometimes regardless of independent notability (see John Aspinwall Roosevelt in FDR's list for instance). While this does seem to simply be other stuff exists, there is a precedent here to include the children in the list regardless of notability. As well, you say that the article is about DT, not who is children are, but isn't who his children are part of who he is? Fbifriday (talk) 20:04, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
Comment:Not really, we can say his number of children and their names. When you say who they are I presume you are talking about notability and their work. This article isn't about them. And mentioning their names in the infobox, it gets too unnecessarily long. Why elongate when we can make do with less? MonsterHunter32 (talk) 20:59, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
Display of the children list has recently been radically shortened into a {{flatlist}}, so that they take one line and a half on most screens. Hardly too long. — JFG talk 21:56, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
No, when I say who they are, I mean simply who they are. I'm not proposing that they have their own articles if their not notable, but the fact that he has children, and what their names are, is worthy of inclusion in his infobox, because it's part of his biography. It's in EVERY SINGLE president's article, with the exception of Reagan. Precedent is to keep it how it is. It's not unnecessarily long, it's five words that could be shortened to no less than five (5, see family section below). This has been decided by consensus before, yet here we are arguing it again. Why elongate when we can do with the consensus we already have? Fbifriday (talk) 22:00, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
  • No. Copying my comment from the discussion above (sigh): WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE is a guideline, not a policy. We can cite it and choose to follow it, or we can decide it doesn't fit this situation. In this case there was extensive discussion (see above, "Current consensuses and RfCs", #10, for links to the discussions), and the consensus was to include all the children with a link, including a link to the "Barron" section of the family page. I personally don't see what is wrong with directing a reader to the information they are looking for, instead of making them search for it. I misunderstood this guideline; it was explained above that it only means we shouldn't include links to sections within the same article. Apparently, links to sections of other articles are OK. --MelanieN (talk) 16:39, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
  • NO - WP:CONSENSUS was already formed about this, and is unlikely to change since that RfC above has still yet to be archived. The editor opening this has been made aware of WP:ARBAPDS and, I believe, appears to be gaming the system by indirectly trying to circumvent consensus with this RfC. Twitbookspacetube (talk) 01:07, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
  • No - Insufficient justification to deviate from guidance at WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE. The Reagan/FA argument is weak, given that even featured articles often usually have bad things in them; else we would never have featured articles. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:44, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

I cannot believe we took this minor issue to RfC, but carry on. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:14, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't think it really is a minor issue. MonsterHunter32 (talk) 19:44, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
Obviously. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:46, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Hey people, it's ok if you do not agree with the proposal. But stop throwing bad faith allegations at me. I didn't even edit the article once. I only came here to talk. MonsterHunter32 (talk) 02:13, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

@MonsterHunter32: I see only one allegation of bad faith, which was of course entirely inappropriate. That's not "people". ―Mandruss ☎ 02:17, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
It was just a general comment asking for people to calm down, not accusing everyone. I was not blaming anyone in personal. MonsterHunter32 (talk) 02:25, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
Actually, you said, "stop throwing bad faith allegations at me", not "calm down". Anyway, I've been around this page for a number of months and I'd say things are pretty calm on this issue by comparison. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:31, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
No what I actually said was, "Hey people, it's ok if you do not agree with the proposal. But stop throwing bad faith allegations at me. I didn't even edit the article once. I only came here to talk." It was a general expression, a phrase not an accusation on everybody or anybody in person. I never said EVERY SINGLE EDITOR is making bad faith allegations, nor did I ever take any names. You are needlessly misunderstanding the issue. In fact I don't think it is so uncommon to talk in this way that one doesn't understand it. Even if you did, you should have asked me first instead of understanding I am blaming the "people" and assume bad faith. You justify me asking people to calm down. This is a completely wasteful issue which is not what this talk page is for. MonsterHunter32 (talk) 07:12, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
As I already said this article is about the subject. MonsterHunter32 (talk) 07:14, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article size - Proactive trimming and pruning

Latest comment: 7 years ago11 comments5 people in discussion

I was thinking about the size of this article this morning. WP:SIZE is a guideline suggesting that we keep articles around 10,000 words (50kB of readable prose). I think the current size of the article (80kB) is fine given the scope of Trump's history. But I think we should strive to keep it around the 80kB mark. Anything approaching 100kB would be far too much. To do so, I propose we actively keep the Presidency section as lean as possible and allow Presidency of Donald Trump and Timeline of the presidency of Donald Trump to be the main locations for this info. Recent news like the immigration order or Bannon on the Security Council would be better placed in those subarticles. We can further trim the campaign section too. IMHO, without proactive trimming and pruning, this article will get unwieldy very quickly. EvergreenFir (talk) 17:31, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Agree. 80kB is the appropriate size. — JFG talk 17:57, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
I agree we need to keep an eye on the size, but I don't think the "Presidency" section is the place to trim. IMO that section needs to be maintained in a robust fashion, since that is what people will be looking for at this article, both now and in the future. I think the "political positions" section should be the first target for trimming. There is already a general fork article, Political positions of Donald Trump, and multiple sub-forks such as Economic policy of Donald Trump. The comparable sections in this article (which is, after all, a biography) should probably be reduced to a "main article" link and one or two paragraphs summarizing what those articles say. Anybody got the time to undertake this? --MelanieN (talk) 18:08, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
@MelanieN: The Presidency section was just the place I saw the potential for the most bloat and recentism. But I agree there are plenty of other places to trim. Given the DS on the article, I think deciding on forks before doing them is prudent. Let's see what we currently got (below) and what we can make. EvergreenFir (talk) 20:27, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

A hierarchical outline of all Trump articles would be useful in these decisions. Any such thing extant? {{Donald Trump series}} is somewhat hierarchical, but does it include everything? ―Mandruss ☎ 18:50, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

@Mandruss: A categorical outline can be found at {{Donald Trump}}. Between the two templates that might be all the relevant articles. EvergreenFir (talk) 20:27, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
Don't agree: when WP:SIZE was "invented" years ago, it was exotical that i.e. two entences had three sources / footnotes. Today, it's normal (especially in articles about living famous people). Btw: de:Adolf Hitler has 282 kB (and if the footnotes were better, it imo would have 100 kB more) .
A text with sections and sub-sections makes reading easier ; many readers with an interest for certain details only read parts of the article.
User:EvergreenFir has deleted the mentioned 2 sentences with the 3 footnotes writing I'm for its removal per #Article size - Proactive trimming and pruning above.
t w o sentences .... for me one of the most absurd comments I've read during 2350 active days with > 46.000 edits in the article namespace --Neun-x (talk) 21:46, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
@Neun-x: the English Wikipedia article on Adolf Hilter is only 73kB in readable prose. Note that you're talking about overall size, not readable prose (see WP:SIZE again). If this is the most absurd thing you've read, I envy you. My argument is that we need to keep this BLP trim, actively reduce WP:RECENTISM, and create subarticles where necessary. EvergreenFir (talk) 21:51, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
@Mandruss: In addition to the {{Donald Trump}} overvivew, there are several detailed navboxes grouping all things Trump into {{Trump businesses}}, {{Trump family}}, {{Trump media}} and {{Trump presidency}}. They were split by yours truly from a prior yuuuge navbox. The sidebar {{Donald Trump series}} is modeled after prior US Presidents and is only meant to contain the most significant articles. Now, there is a lot of overlap between {{Donald Trump}} and {{Trump presidency}}, which evolved independently from each other and should probably be merged now. — JFG talk 01:11, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
Right, and it would be useful to have everything on one page in outline format, if only in the Wikipedia namespace, or even user space. Or it could be a subpage of this page, Talk:Donald Trump/Outline. Something just for editor use, not readers. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:15, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

IMHO, the first candidate section to summarize is Donald Trump#Legal matters. Target article is very detailed and has spawned some recent forks with all the current frenzy about EO 13769… — JFG talk 00:55, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Entry about Donald Trump twitter?

Latest comment: 7 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

It seems that this is significant and widely cited enough to have its own page. What do others think? Bangabandhu (talk) 15:42, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

@Bangabandhu: Feel free to create a page if you can find reliable sources analyzing the phenomenon. Beware of not turning that into a "best of" list of anecdotes. There are plenty of those at wikiquote:Donald Trump. — JFG talk 02:09, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
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