Talk:George Santos/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

brokering sale of yacht

seems like speculation not even as firm as original research. 142.163.195.205 (talk) 03:37, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Well, The New York Times reported it, and we used their articles as sources. No one has since then reported anything that casts doubt on that account. Daniel Case (talk) 04:54, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

George Santos has been expelled

The vote just passed for George Santos' expulsion, the final tally was 311-114. 72.229.242.36 (talk) 16:03, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 December 2023

was 2601:405:8401:CD40:25BF:7D38:C724:8FA7 (talk) 16:34, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Was what? Slatersteven (talk) 16:38, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. M.Bitton (talk) 17:16, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Probably they meant change the "is" to "was" in the opening sentence, which we will not do because that implies the subject is deceased. He is not. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:48, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

This content is obsolete

Split proposal

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.

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I propose that the sections False biographical statements scandal, Campaign finance issues, Investigations and legal issues and Federal indictment be split into a new article titled Allegations of misconduct by George Santos (or something of the like).

The present article is certainly too long, there is no doubt about that. Much of the articles bulk comes from these sections which realistically could warrant a page of their own. Cheers! Estar8806 (talk) 01:30, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Support, most of this material belongs on a separate page. This article should have a summary of his many issues, not a comprehensive record of everything written about Santos in the last year. I support WP:BOLD action to implement a split and may take such action in the next couple days myself if there is no objection. —Ganesha811 (talk) 02:25, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

I have been planning to do this in draftspace; you have just forced my hand. I eagerly await your attention and devotion to shaping the draft into something presentable in main space in some time, since you care. Daniel Case (talk) 02:31, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Happy to help! Feel free to ping me whenever it would be helpful (i.e. when me jumping in to make changes wouldn't interfere with what you are doing). —Ganesha811 (talk) 02:36, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

OK, I have created the draft on the 2022 election article. Obviously before we can go to mainspace with it it will need material about the Democratic primary, a proper intro and infobox. I'll try to take care of the second tonight despite all the other it-never-rains-it-pours things I have been having to do, on-wiki and off, online and off, lately. Daniel Case (talk) 02:45, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

I support splitting the article because of the length of 3 of the 4 sections (false biographic statements, campaign finance, and investigations and legal issues) and make those 3 sections into their own article on Santos' scandals or crimes. Some are allegations, but most have been verified as legitimate.

I would keep the federal indictment section in this article because it's shorter and changing because the legal process is still playing out. JohnAdams1800 (talk) 23:59, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure that all the allegations belong in a separate article yet; I think we discussed that above and decided against it because we don't really have a history of creating separate articles for things like that without a formal hook for it like an actual investigation or prosecution. OK, we have that now, but that's only a fraction of the allegations (I strongly suspect that there will be more; maybe eventually we can have something like United States v. Santos or George Santos campaign finance scandal if there is). Daniel Case (talk) 02:35, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. Inseparable from his bio. Plus, even if moved, it should be something like George Santos scandals. Neutrality^talk 17:12, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

• Support split of false biographical statements scandal: I'm worried allegations of misconduct by George Santos is a bit too broad of a page and cramming a lot of loosely related scandals in it will be confusing and hard to read/navigate. Would prefer splitting specific instances. The easiest would probably be the false biographical statements scandal since that one appears to have largely "resolved" while a lot of the other scandals are developing. Additionally, the false biographical statements scandal section has a chronological explanation of the breaking of the scandal that would make a decent main section for a standalone article.

TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 19:12, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

The problem is that there's not really a "scandal" over his fanciful biographical claims since none of them involve an actual violation of the law, nor are they alone enough to force the House's hand on expelling him. Daniel Case (talk) 02:14, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

There doesn't have to be a law broken for a scandal to be a scandal. Plenty of politicians get caught up in sex scandals without there being any laws broken. estar8806 (talk) ★ 02:30, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm talking about per our naming conventions. It seems like we reserve that term for situations where there are at least allegations of laws broken, and perhaps an investigation, even if it comes to the conclusion that no action is/was necessary. Daniel Case (talk) 18:18, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

I'd be okay with whatever article title works best; I'd even be okay with cutting different section. My main concern is splitting too much at once. As proposed, I think the current split is a little too big and all encompassing. Out of genuine curiosity (and not to be argumentative), how much of the article is left if we split all the allegations of misconduct at once? TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 18:56, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

• Support split. The scandal(s) about him is taking up more than half of this biography on him. Natg 19 (talk) 20:38, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Article length is not a reason to ignore BLP. First, the scandals take up most of the article because, as noted above, it takes up most of the coverage in reliable sources. Second, this gets into the questions of POV that "Criticism of ..." articles have long opened up ... with the difference being that this one is about a living person. Do we have any other articles generally devoted to "Bad stuff about Joe Blow"? If you know of one, please link it here. Daniel Case (talk) 04:45, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

I don't see why POV would be an issue in "Criticism of..." articles, especially considering many articles have built-in sections covering the matter. First of all, it would be against NPOV to not cover it. And more to the point you're trying to make, there's nothing inherently biased against separating criticisms of an article subject when those criticisms are so frequent and also cover most of the usage in reliable sources. It only becomes biased when we apply it arbitrarily or when the way it is written gives undue weight to a certain opinion regarding the accuracy of the claims. estar8806 (talk) ★ 05:15, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

WP:CRITS would like to have a word with you. Indeed, in this context, that whole page is worth reading. Daniel Case (talk) 16:45, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

I think @Daniel Case is right and we should consider WP:CRITS when titling articles and making splits here. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 20:57, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Yea go for it, if it’s gonna be a crap tone long, then yes go ahead 107.116.83.7 (talk) 22:24, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

• Support split for above reasons. New article itself is certainly notable – Broccoli & Coffee ^{(Oh hai)} 02:18, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support I don't understand the name argument however. What ever the potential dangers of Criticism of … articles there is a large amount of WP:RS criticism of him and RS discussion of said criticism. Therefore I agree it would violate WP:NPOV to not have coverage of something. Invasive Spices (talk) 21:32, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

  The issue is not whether we have it, it's whether we put it in a separate article. It is one thing to have Criticism of Microsoft, say, or Criticism of Wikipedia—those are things. By contrast, an article devoted solely to negative allegations about a living person is something no one has yet responded to my challenge to find and link to. This at the very least raises serious BLP concerns. In fact, I think we might be better off having this discussion at BLPN, where a couple of months ago we were able to put to rest the question of whether we included Santos's ex-wife's name to rest. (See archived link above). Daniel Case (talk) 02:04, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. There are now two proposals for splitting off sections, #2022 campaign to 2022 New York's 3rd congressional district election and this one, #False biographical statements scandal to Allegations of misconduct by George Santos. Before discussing splits, the article should be edited thoroughly, to weed out duplications of text and cites. IMO, there won't be enough material for either separate article once the editing is done. There's not much substance to Santos's real-life biography, so we're left with a list of lies and how they were detected. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:41, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

  Well, to be fair, I think eventually we will know his real story. There is "not much substance" to his biography only because what he has told us has turned out not to be true, and because he has so trashed his credibility that way that the things that cannot be verified, or are normally accepted on faith (like his birthplace) cannot be relied on. Daniel Case (talk) 18:39, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose for now. I suspect this content can be greatly condensed. We're currently just throwing in everything and the kitcken sink. I've excised a bit of it. Even so, you could probably cut out nothing but filler words and random factoids and manage to cut out 15-20% of the article without seriously affecting the meaning. GMG^talk 11:38, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  And thanks very much for your wonderfully elucidative edit summaries! Wow! I swear, where would the rest of us benighted peons be without your blazing displays of wit and erudition slashing across the Wikipedian firmament! If we didn't know we couldn't live without you before, well, we sure do now! Daniel Case (talk) 15:42, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  I dunno. Go clean it up then. The prose is bloated. GMG^talk 17:31, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  Well, since you did such a great job, I'm afraid that if I did you would come racing over to cut me down to size with another withering edit summary clearly intended to leave everyone in awestruck rapture at your brilliance. Daniel Case (talk) 19:00, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  You apparently don't get perfect tense, because past tense orients itself to the present, while perfect orients itself to a moment of reference in the past, looking back on the past from that particular perspective. But I'm sorry, did you have a point to make? GMG^talk 19:41, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  See discontinuous past: "a category of past tense of verbs argued to exist in some languages which have a meaning roughly characterizable as 'past and not present' or 'past with no present relevance'". See also Simple past#usage:

  .. [S]ome stative verbs do not generally use the progressive aspect at all, typically verbs of mental states (know, believe, need), of emotional states (love, dislike, prefer), of possession (have, own), of senses (hear) and some others (consist, exist, promise) ... and in these cases the simple past is used even for a temporary state ... The simple past is used when the event happened at a particular time in the past, or during a period which ended in the past (i.e. a period that does not last up until the present time)

  I grant that a lot of people misuse it, and most of the time when you have taken it out you have been correct to (see? If I said "were correct to", it might be taken as implying "but you're not now", and we wouldn't want that, would we?). But still abusus non tollit usum.

  It may be a regional thing ... where I live the simple past has that meaning when used without a stated time the action began (assuming we are talking about a continuing action, such as aligning oneself politically with someone else), but I've noticed in some other areas it seems to be exactly the opposite (Much like some Southern U.S. English speakers tell stories clearly set in the past using the present.). Studying Russian made my attention to aspect in English that much sharper. Daniel Case (talk) 03:42, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

  The perfect in the second sentence is necessary. There is a point marked in the past, at this event with a definite beginning and ending, a thing that is no longer occurring in the present. The referenced moment is past relative to the present, just as the thing we're pointing at is in the past relative to that moment. In the first sentence, if Santos aligned himself with Trump, and remains in this state, there is no relative reference point from which we are anchoring ourselves to point back to the past behind it. The only reference point is "right meow" and that's simple past.

  This faux perfect that creeps up everywhere is an artifact of people imagining their point of writing as being in the past relative to the point of reading. It's not necessary 99% of the time unless you have reason to believe that the time of writing is relevant to changing circumstances. As of writing 12 of the 14 people had been rescued from the mine collapse. As of writing Neil Armstrong had become the first person to walk on the moon. Well no, Armstrong was and the temporal reference in the perfect tense is meaningless. GMG^talk 10:19, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

  Maybe the solution here is just to recast the sentence. Daniel Case (talk) 17:40, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose splitting any content off from this article based on point of view, per WP:CRITS. The allegations of misconduct are an inseparable part of this biography. – bradv 15:54, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  If no criticism/allegation articles could be made, we wouldn't see articles like Allegations of sexual misconduct against Donald Trump or Allegations of cheating during the 1994 Formula One World Championship. The problem would be if the fork is not told from a reasonably neutral point of view or if it is a WP:POV_Fork, which I see no reason to believe the information about the allegations against Santos aren't legitimate allegations that should be discussed on Wikipedia. Making a split doesn't preclude there being brief parts of the present article about the accusations with a link to the new article for more information. Especially given the length of the article, it seems totally reasonable to me. 4kbw9Df3Tw (talk) 18:50, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  You're leaving out that this is a living person we're talking about ... of course we can spin out a section about cheating in an F1 race or races, and the allegations against Trump resulted in a lawsuit (as well as the article titularly confining itself to one narrowly defined area of misconduct). I think a separate article about Santos's misconduct might require more active cases than just the current one ... if, for instance, the House Ethics Committee brings some serious charges (as I suspect it has recently signaled it very well may) and/or the current indictment is superseded by one bringing more charges (again I think that entirely possible). Daniel Case (talk) 17:25, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose Santos is tied to his scandals, and they are the most notable thing about him. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cortador (talk • contribs) 09:42, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
• Support. The present article has pretty extensive sections about Santos' lies and ethics violations that I believe make the article too long. XTools says the article has 84 kB of prose, for which WP:TOOLONG#Size guideline quite straightforwardly indicates the article "Probably should be divided" (articles between 60 and 100 kB). Especially since Santos is really not that impactful of a figure compared to others with long articles, I think this makes sense.

Though I suspect this is the intention anyway, I would still highlight that there probably should remain a brief section or sections in the article. there are plenty of other articles that keep a brief summary of some topic about a figure, but have separate articles that go into more depth. To give a random example, Noam Chomsky has a section in his article about his political views, but there is a substantially longer page on his political views separate from the primary page: Political positions of Noam Chomsky. 4kbw9Df3Tw (talk) 18:37, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

• Support. The present article is dozens of pages long. We can provide a summary of George Santos's many controversies on his main page and still have a separate page that goes into detail. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EvergreenLAM (talk • contribs) 03:59, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
• Small change The proposed title is confusing. Is he accused or accusing? Allegations of misconduct against George Santos. Invasive Spices (talk) 23:18, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support Article is getting a bit too long and it slanted towards recent events. Maybe in this article, it should cover a solid summary, but an individual article going into further detail would be really beneficial to readers, I think. --TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 20:49, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

• Support as per 4kbw. - AquilaFasciata (talk | contribs) 15:58, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Oppose Santos' scandals are recent events and we need to condense a little bit. I think it is better for now to review the article and condense and unify it. Declamados (talk) 19:03, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Not that I think anyone cares enough about this anymore, but TBH given the issues I have identified above I really think that, as we did with whether to use Santos's ex-wife's name or not, this is better hashed out at BLPN. I should do that soon. Daniel Case (talk) 01:35, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Support vs. oppose count is nine to six. I don't see a clear consensus, but since I have participated in the discussion, I'm not going to close it. Cortador (talk) 11:44, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

I haven't participated in the debate but one editor has decided to spin-off Allegations of misconduct by George Santos so the split is now in effect. Of course anyone can always undo that split but I just thought people should know. Pichpich (talk) 23:23, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, because I will have to nominate it for deletion as not only was there, as noted above, not a clear consensus for the split I believe the whole debate is moot anyway since I believe such a split in this instance violates BLP. Daniel Case (talk) 03:03, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

That article has been deleted. Daniel Case (talk) 04:18, 1 October 2023 (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.

Failed Schemes

Where should this fit?

One scheme had a "Polish citizen" with frozen assets who wanted to buy cryptocurrency. The potential victim thought this sounded like a classic Advance-fee scam, asked questions, and the deal fell apart after the potential victim asked for more details and changes to an NDA.

"How George Santos Used Political Connections to Fuel Get-Rich Schemes". 2023-07-26. Retrieved 2023-08-08.

"Disgraced U.S. Congressman George Santos Involved Crypto in Nigerian Prince-Like Scheme: NYT". www.coindesk.com. 2023-07-27. Retrieved 2023-08-08. The donor told the Times he was struck by how much their pitch sounded like the classic Nigerian prince email scam in which a wealthy foreigner asks someone for help gaining access to frozen assets.

Lent (talk) 10:52, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

I have used other material from that Times story elsewhere in the article where I believed it added significance. As the Times acknowledged, the Daily Beast (which per earlier discussions on this talk page, now archived, we decided we would not use as a source on this article) had reported that Santos had been using Tina Forte's campaign as a cash cow for himself, reporting the Times echoed in this coverage.

I didn't think the crypto scheme (if that's indeed what it was) rose to the level of notability to include in the article. I understand why the Times chose to lead its story with it—"crypto" has all these dark and mysterious connotations today, especially among the sort of people who read the Times and should know better. But that doesn't mean that we have to include it; we're an open-content online encyclopedia, not the newspaper of record for the planet's main superpower, so we make decisions on different criteria.

First, we don't know this Polish guy's name. Second, he backed out of the deal, so we honestly can't say whether it was a scam based purely on his reservations. Third, if it was and someone else was scammed, they have not for whatever reason complained about this to any authority or gone public with that. Fourth, if Santos and his associates never approached anyone else, then nothing happened so it, by itself, is not a story (Really, this feels like the Times was trying to bury the real lede on the story, the Forte stuff, where it did report new information, for some reason). Maybe this Polish guy has promised to reveal other stuff about Santos to them and this is just their way of rewarding him for coming to them? I don't know.

Granted, with Santos there is enough history of dubious business dealings that it is safe to say that something like this carries a presumption of illegitimacy (an inference, I hasten to add, that should be left to the reader). But, as discussions above should show, there is enough concern about this article being top-heavy with indiscriminately reported Bad Stuff About George Santos that we should be mindful about adding something that, in its present form, seems to be more or less pure innuendo than anything else. If and when there is more, then we could add this. Daniel Case (talk) 17:10, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

New Daily Beast article about the campaign-treasurer issue

My almost-daily Google review of Santos news today dredged up this lengthy Daily Beast article that appears to have resolved the question of who the "Andrew Olson" listed as Santos's campaign treasurer after Nancy Marks left/was forced out of that capacity in January (and given what has happened to her since, I hope she's aware that it's very difficult to make up fake contributions to her canteen account, and her upcoming peers are not going to be very forgiving if she does try), and in it until May, when Santos briefly took over that job himself after being indicted the first time.

TL;DR on this: Olson is a real person alright, but there's a lot of inconsistencies in the record that suggest he may have been a front for Tom Datwyler, who at the time denied rumors he was to take over as Santos's treasurer, and further oddities in the record suggest Olson and Datwyler may be involved together in some shady dark-money laundering.

I would be adding this to the article already, but for our uneasiness earlier on in writing this about using the Beast as a source for BLP material per WP:DAILYBEAST that has led us to exclude its reporting, save when validated by other sources of unquestioned reliability like the Times, from this article.

But with this I think we can make an exception:

• Santos is quoted on the record in the article, unlike earlier stories by the Beast questioning his claims to have been one of the first COVID patients in New York City and raising questions about his marriage (questions that have since made it into the article when the Times reported on it).

• The article suggests that Santos may have been the one who was taken in this time.

• And, as such, he isn't really the focus of the article. In fact, from a BLP perspective there's really nothing negative about him here. It's Datwyler and Olson who really have the interest in BLP here, and frankly we don't have any reason to go into the allegations and suggestions about them in this article. Should it become a separate, notable political scandal (which it looks like it could; the Beast article mentions several state-level investigations related to the pair's activities, some of which have resulted in admissions of wrongdoing), then an article about that scandal could use it as a source, but that's a conversation for that article's talk page, not here.

Any other thoughts? Daniel Case (talk) 21:14, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

There having been no objections in over a week, and the Beast having followed up on this today, I will be going ahead with this. Daniel Case (talk) 02:57, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

HCE/ISC report

This is a monster. There's a lot that can and will be added to the article besides the bits about OnlyFans and Hermés that have been getting so much Internet traction ... that's one reason why I've been removing the long quote from the press release, as a lot of specifics can be added to the appropriate sections of the article. I'll be getting to this after I finish some administrative tasks. Daniel Case (talk) 03:32, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

OK, this is done now. But stay tuned ... Daniel Case (talk) 22:29, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

The Fabulist

No sooner have we accommodated all the fun facts from the Ethics Committee report than Mark Chiusano's The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing and Very American Legend of George Santos has been published (I used an excerpt Vanity Fair ran a couple of weeks ago with some additional material on his mother).

I have been reading it with a highlighter looking for things we can now consider reliably sourced enough to add to the article, and new stuff. Among them:

• More family background, including his name explained (his parents differed, so they gave him both first names). And his friends and relatives saying he's always been this sort of liar and hustler. And his mother, with whom he clearly had a deeper relationship than his father, also having this reputation to a lesser degree
• A longer discussion of whether he had COVID in March 2020 or not (something we took out for lack of sufficient sourcing). I think we will be able to include it now.
• More on his relationship with Adriana Parizzi (when they met, a rich woman who didn't know how to manage her money, exactly the worst combination when paired with a guy from a humble background who's already a practiced scammer).
• Speaking of her, Greg Morey-Parker now becomes the second person to go on the record saying Santos's 2012-19 marriage was purely for immigration purposes (and he says Santos got even more money for it—$30K—than Parizzi does).
• Some more interesting stuff about what Santos told that guy who got arrested in the skimmer scheme, suggesting he had more experience in credit-card fraud than anybody's given him, ahem, credit for.
• More about things Santos has claimed that probably aren't true (i.e., he has a niece who's autistic) that are relevant to later claims he's made.
• More about times he's gotten caught (i.e., he told Grant Lally that his family was wealthy from their work in finance down in Brazil, whereupon Lally asked Santos if he was of Lebanese descent (as apparently many of Brazil's financiers are) and Santos seemed not to know what he was talking about).

And more. I'm not done with the book yet so I won't be adding anything right now, but my guess/hope is that I will be able to start doing so before the end of the Thanksgiving holiday. Before Santos's likely (and historic; he'd be the first Republican) expulsion from the House afterwards, which should result in another spike in views for the article. Daniel Case (talk) 22:54, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Just saying that this article atm has 109,585 bytes of prose, and per WP:TOOBIG guideline that falls under "Almost certainly should be divided or trimmed." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 23:00, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

But you probably knew that. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 23:02, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I do ... however we haven't found a good way to divide it that doesn't fall afoul of BLP. Daniel Case (talk) 04:43, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps the topic has died down a bit in a year or so, and it will be easier to drastically summarize some of the content. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:04, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I think is likely, too, especially since the odds are very long that he's not going to be in Congress before this week is out. Daniel Case (talk) 19:53, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Nancy Marks article?

Later in the book Chiusano devotes most of a chapter to Nancy Marks; some of which is no doubt derived from his own reporting. She's also been the subject of a New York Times article. And, of course, she's now an admitted felon.

These sources all document her involvement in Long Island Republican politics at local through state levels well before Santos—her connections to twice-convicted former Suffolk County legislator and still-current power broker Fred Towle, her work for Lee Zeldin starting with his state senate campaigns all the way up to his gube run last year, and some issues people have had with her work (the feeling that, even before Santos, she had spread herself thin to the detriment of her work ... she was called the "queen of amendments" behind her back due to the amount of revised campaign finance reports she had to file with state and federal regulators at least before she worked for Santos).

So, I am thinking, she may now be notable independently of her connection to Santos, enough to justify an article. Any thoughts from anyone else? Daniel Case (talk) 18:06, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Based on one chapter? Slatersteven (talk) 18:09, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

I mean, books and book chapters on people are pretty much textbook evidence of significant coverage under WP:GNG. Whether or not one chapter is enough is a threshold question (and since there will probably be more books and coverage we could be in a place where right now they don't meet GNG, but they likely will eventually).

My biggest concerns would be

1) do we have enough sourcing to write an article that can conform with WP:BLP?; and

2) Are there WP:CRIME issues? Specifically are we meeting the requirement that The motivation for the crime or the execution of the crime is unusual—or has otherwise been considered noteworthy—such that it is a well-documented historic event. Generally, historic significance is indicated by sustained coverage of the event in reliable secondary sources which persists beyond contemporaneous news coverage and devotes significant attention to the individual's role.

If the current sourcing allows an article that conforms with BLP and we're in the second exception for WP:CRIME perpetrators (because I don't think we can meet the first), then I think we can create the article. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 18:37, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, more than one, not one (see wp:n). Slatersteven (talk) 18:40, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Of course just the book wouldn't meet WP:N, the question is if the book chapter + all prior newspaper coverage would meet WP:N. And just to be transparent, I don't know who Nancy Marks is and don't have an opinion on if the article should be created. I just thought the discussion should include the policies that would be implicated by the article if it were created. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 18:52, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Do any of these talk about them in a context other than this? They have to be independently notable, are they? Slatersteven (talk) 11:06, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

The book chapter and the prior coverage go into Marks's career in political campaigns well prior to Santos, as I sort of implied in my original post. Daniel Case (talk) 21:40, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Her name is a reasonable search term, so I created a redirect to this article. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:12, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Possible photo that could be taken and added to the article

In the wake of my recent additions to the article of details reported by Chiusano about Santos's time working at the Dish call center in College Point, I decided to see if, from the details he gives about the building and its surroundings, if I could figure out where it is so someone in Queens could take a picture of it for the article (as opposed to a lot of the addresses Santos has lived at, which we're probably not going to take pictures of for the article for a lot of BLP and privacy reasons).

I found it. It's at 3189 123rd St. Appearances to the contrary, the road in front is a public street so a photographer should be able to take the picture.

Maybe I'll ask someone from WM-NYC. I have an idea ... Daniel Case (talk) 06:10, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Deletion of word or Deletion of quote due to opinion, not proven fact

Ref. #75 should not include “falsely” or the sentence should be removed in its entirety as the author of that quote has inserted that word, which is an opinion, not proven factually. 47.153.145.237 (talk) 16:21, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

To which falsehood is this referring? There's so many that you have to be specific, and newly added references mean that Ref. #75 now may not be the one you're referring to. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:47, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 December 2023 (2)

Somewhere in the tenure section, it needs to describe his expulsion. 166.198.251.69 (talk) 21:47, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. M.Bitton (talk) 00:27, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Incompetent writing

Under reference e., one bullet point reads as follows:

• "On two separate occasions, including one where he stopped the person from taking a bag of his own important papers at his son's behest, Gercino advised people to be careful regarding their dealings with George."

But nobody has the slightest idea of who "the person" refers to, since no person has been referred to previously.

It is also impossible to tell whose "son" is referred to here.

Suggestion: If you cannot write, please do not write for Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:200:c082:2ea0:99b7:daf:c093:d4df (talk)

It was clearer before it was changed to the bulleted format. I have edited it appropriately. And please, Mr. Random Bay Area person, you can be less insulting in your tone next time. Daniel Case (talk) 03:29, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

New article about expulsion

I think that an article should be created solely dedicated to George Santos' expulsion from the House, especially since it is a historic vote and he's only the sixth ever representative to be expelled from the House. Also, this expulsion will create a new special election, probably in 2024, so I think that a new article being created would be fitting. BasedGigachad (talk) 01:19, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

A potential split is being discussed at #Let's decide this for good... The special election has its own article. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:21, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

•  Courtesy link: 2024 New York's 3rd congressional district special election 331dot (talk) 10:09, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 December 2023

Change

is a American politician who served as the U.S. representative for New York's 3rd congressional district from January to December 2023.

to

is an expulsed American politician who served as the U.S. representative for New York's 3rd congressional district from January to December 2023.

207.96.32.81 (talk) 05:09, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: We're not going to say that he's expelled before we even say why he's notable. – Muboshgu (talk) 05:16, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Bad removal

Bad removal by Philomathes2357 here: [1] The parenthetical is useful for readers to understand the context and why Santos feuds with a Brazilian politician. 129.7.105.122 (talk) 16:15, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Its also unsourced. Slatersteven (talk) 16:39, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

It was a good removal. People who want to know more about Lula can click on the link. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:53, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Confusing wording regarding 2020 run

In the section about the 2020 congressional run, it's mentioned that "Queens Republicans, still angry over his abortive challenge to them the year before, were unsupportive.

This doesn't make any sense in the context of the article, his 2019 campaign for a Republican party position (?) is mentioned in the referenced source, but not mentioned earlier in this article, making it entirely unclear which "abortive challenge" the text is referring to here. Suggest removing entirely unless more info can be found about this campaign, because even the referenced article isn't very clear about the nature of this run, as you can see from the question mark I added when I mentioned the position. 2A02:A445:7B2:1:865:121:F2D2:19FA (talk) 18:51, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

This was something taken out in earlier edits by people who just like to count bytes or characters and read in isolation. What had happened was, as mentioned in the source, that Santos ran for a party position (a committee seat, I would guess), challenging a well-liked incumbent. It failed, apparently, but people in parties generally think of that sort of thing as a dick move if you don't already have some support or a good reason. Daniel Case (talk) 22:27, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

GADS PAC

The meaning of this PAC's name is not mentioned anywhere in the article. While one could eventually draw the connection themselves, it might be nice to add that it stands for his initials when first mentioning the PAC, as mentioned in this article: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/george-santos-campaign-finance-pac_n_63bf6eb1e4b0cbfd55ef425b 2A02:A445:7B2:1:830F:C108:D8E1:749D (talk) 20:50, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I think the reader can guess that, and absent any sourced explanation to this effect it's probably OR to say that, as simple as it sounds. Daniel Case (talk) 22:28, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Comments on the lede

Not that I have any love for this guy but ...

The lede focuses heavily on talking about all the charges and allegations but does not really try do much to summarize his life as a whole. I'd advocate trying to add some more info about his career in general and try to paraphrase all of the allegations a bit more. I'm not suggesting trying to downplay the seriousness of the allegations, but rather just be a little more objective in the summary of the topic.

-- MC 161.69.54.47 (talk) 22:42, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I've added a two-sentence biography which discusses the Devolder Organization, but it's hard to summarize Santos' life story without going down a rabbit trail of alleged fraud and other petty crime, and the lead is long enough already. His life is harder to summarize than with most other congress critters. ("Businessman" seems like disingenuous whitewashing, while "alleged fraudster" seems pejorative, which I'm trying hard not to be.) Carguychris (talk) 23:49, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree, the expulsion is very notable, but the lede doesn't require a blow by blow description of what happened, but rather a summary of his life and the expulsion. Ashmoo (talk) 14:14, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Let's decide this for good...

Let's try to come to a consensus now to avoid pains later: If Santos is actually expelled, would that be sufficient enough for a split?

I would argue yes but I don't have strong feelings on the matter as of yet. Esolo5002 (talk) 23:58, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Split what? I still say trim the excess WP:NOTNEWS / WP:RECENTISM content. His RS coverage may stop after he is expelled. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:03, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Well, it might slow down ... he's still facing charges, after all, and those have to be disposed of.

I also have this feeling that, if he is expelled, Santos will go full oppo-dump on those he perceives to be his enemies, especially the other three members from Long Island, who have made no secret of wanting him gone sooner rather than later. He deleted a tweet this spring in which he responded to something critical Anthony D'Esposito tweeted about him by dredging up an incident very embarassing to the latter from his days as a cop. I don't doubt there's a lot more where that came from. And Santos now knows how to keep his name in the media.

He could also run again ... wouldn't surprise me (James Traficant pulled in 15% of the vote after he was expelled, from his jail cell), either in an ensuing special election or next fall. He'll say something Trumpian like how he only said he wouldn't run for re-election, and you can only be running for re-election if you're the incumbent. There's enough of a vote from people who like the fuck-you idea of Santos, from people who will honestly believe that if he's being persecuted so much, it must mean he's really there to fight for them, for him to carry enough votes as to make him a general-election spoiler for the Republicans. Without spending much money, either. Daniel Case (talk) 04:09, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

You have a good point about his ongoing criminal proceedings. But I do want to see what we can trim before any split. I've removed a little bit of extraneous detail this morning, including statements about whether or not Reps would vote to expel, since those are moot now that we have the actual vote totals. There's more that can be culled or condensed in this article. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:45, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I think a split of some content to an Expulsion of George Santos article may be justifiable. It'd be a notable event in itself and we could split some of the content on the prior expulsion attempts and ethics report. But I also agree that we need to trim content here too per Muboshgu. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 00:26, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't really think a separate expulsion article would be necessary ... do we have one for Traficant or Meyers? It's not a long, complicated process like the speaker votes were. The motion is called, people make speeches, it's voted on ... and we really wouldn't be moving much from this article in that process. Daniel Case (talk) 04:13, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I was thinking split the Expulsion and all the prior expulsion/censure/resignation calls + the ethics report to that article and we can condense those several paragraphs here into one or two shorter paragraphs and link to the other article. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 21:40, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

That could work, yes. Daniel Case (talk) 23:12, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Addendum: One caveat, though, is that if we decide to move the allegations in the ethics report to that article ... well, understandable, but ... none of the allegations in the report are really totally new, the media and the indictments have already raised the broader outlines of the diversion of campaign funds for personal use and other alleged frauds; all the report did was add some details (like the money being spent on shoes and Botox) and supporting evidence like the emails between Santos and Marks showing both of them were aware of the loan not being real, and Santos's bank records showing he couldn't possibly have had that money to loan to the campaign in 2020 or 2022. So if we move that material to an expulsion article, we have to be careful to move just the material the committee uncovered.

I think the material best suited for removal to a spinoff article would be the stuff from Santos's personal financial disclosure forms filed with the House. That is entirely within the Ethics Committee's jurisdiction, and to me would be the strongest justification for an expulsion since while it is a federal crime to lie on those forms, and Santos has been charged with that, only the House could initiate that investigation.

Other thoughts:

Could we maybe consider a more specific title than "Expulsion of ..."? A uninformed reader might ask: Expulsion from what? School? The Garden of Eden? Uganda? Perhaps it would be better as Expulsion of George Santos from the U.S. House of Representatives.

Lastly, I have another idea for a spinoff: How about all the allegations that have gotten Santos charged? This could be, I think, following our naming conventions, United States v. George Santos or something like that (I suspect, from the committee's report, that further charges are in the offing. The report itself makes an extremely strong case for tax evasion (surprise!), and I detect from the footnote about DoJ asking them to back off from looking closely at the yacht sale that some pretty big campaign-finance charges are possibly being considered by a grand jury). Daniel Case (talk) 06:02, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Why do we need a split, this seems to be to be easily covered by one or two paragraphs. Slatersteven (talk) 11:09, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

(1) There is no way an explosion can be easily covered in 1-2 paragraphs for such a historic event, and (2) this page is in dire need of a split due to the readable prose size being 114 kB, which means it should “almost certainly be divided” per WP:SIZERULE. This is an obvious candidate to be divided. 166.198.251.69 (talk) 12:38, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

"Explosion"? Did AutoCorrect get away with something again? Did that balloon version of Santos meet a bad end? Daniel Case (talk) 19:23, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

The size of the article doesn't necessitate a split. WP:SIZERULE says that once the readable prose size exceeds 100kB the article "Almost certainly should be divided or trimmed" (emphasis added). It's worth exploring the trimming option, which should be easier with time. Samp4ngeles (talk) 22:24, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree, although the article is long, I don't see a good, narrow subarticle that would (a) need significant space to expand and (b) be long enough to resolve size issues here. With an expulsion article, which sections would be included? How would we avoid too much duplication between the main article and subarticle, as well as imbalanced weight of sections? It could be doable, but should be clearly defined with an intention to properly use summary style. The issues and investigations and proceedings just intersect so much, and you cannot just ask "Split, yes or no?" Reywas92^Talk 21:49, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I do feel that, with the material from Chiusano's book, we probably could split off an Early life of George Santos at some point soon. Daniel Case (talk) 20:57, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Draft:Expulsion of George Santos from the U.S. House of Representatives

What do other editors think of the draft article now that Draft:Expulsion of George Santos from the U.S. House of Representatives exists? TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 22:45, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree with others that it's premature to split the article and it's possible to trim it. While his prosecution and subsequent career may add length, the expulsion is really central to his biography and notoriety, so worth seeing if it's possible to keep the article to around 100kB of prose. That's entirely possible. Samp4ngeles (talk) 22:28, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

I generally agree that the we need to trim. I just also think the expulsion is likely a notable event in itself. It is the first expulsion ever without a conviction and there is definitely going to be a lot of commentary on the implications of that that'd probably belong in an article about the expulsion. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 22:37, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

I would expect most commentary on the expulsion itself to be in Expulsion from the United States Congress. A lot of the content on expulsion within the current Santos article can be trimmed or perhaps moved to the general article on expulsion. The Traficant article has only a few paragraphs on expulsion, the Myers article has only a sentence. Santos is admittedly novel, but it could just as easily be a section in Expulsion from the United States Congress rather than splitting into a separate article. Samp4ngeles (talk) 23:37, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 December 2023

"Santos wrote that "9/11 claimed my mothers [sic] life". In an October 2021 interview, he said his mother was "caught up in the ash cloud" during 9/11 but "never applied for relief" because the family could afford the medical bills." - "could" should presumably be "couldn't", otherwise the statement doesn't make sense. 2A00:23C7:14A2:BE01:B1F9:5A46:D1F9:E86 (talk) 16:31, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

It says they did not apply, as they did not need it. Slatersteven (talk) 16:33, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

(International) Problems with Democracy?

I think the significance of this article is that it is related to broken trust in democracies. An especially pernicious form of corruption? From that perspective, I think this article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GaaSyy should be mentioned and linked in the George Santos article. He is a Japanese fake politician who pulled some similar stunts and who was also eventually expelled from the Diet. Shanen (talk) 09:14, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Added: [2], we'll see if it sticks. If you're thinking more than that, you need some really good sources making the Santos/GaaSyy connection. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:44, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Number of evictions and judgment in favor of Gregory Morey-Parker

I just made a series of edits for clarification and brevity and also did some source checking. These two statements did not seem to be supported by the cited sources:

Gregory Morey-Parker, a roommate who lent Santos money in 2014 that has not been repaid despite a judgment to that effect...

The cited sources did not explicitly state that Morey-Parker had won a formal judgment against Santos—only that he believed Santos had cheated him and stolen from him. A quick Google search didn't reveal any information about a judgment in favor of Morey-Parker.

In Santos's third eviction case, in 2017...

The cited NYT article makes reference to events that took place "after two evictions"; it doesn't unequivocally state that Santos had been evicted exactly two times.

Both of these statements come from sections that have been edited numerous times, so perhaps the relevant citations or additional explanation got scrambled. Carguychris (talk) 19:07, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

We should probably look at the earlier versions of the article, from about January or February. I definitely recall three evictions. There was once, at least, a source for Morey-Parker having sought and received a judgement which (surprise!) Santos still hasn't paid. Daniel Case (talk) 19:12, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

I backtracked to Jan 2023 and realized upon reading the NYT story again that it wasn't Morey-Parker; it was someone named Peter Hamilton who loaned Santos money that was never repaid and took him to court over it. The preceding paragraphs quote Morey-Parker discussing Santos' apparent lies, but it was Hamilton who won the judgment. Carguychris (talk) 20:40, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Alright! Good work!

BTW, Chris, I'm guessing from your recent edits that you've been reading Chiusano's book too? Daniel Case (talk) 20:53, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Yessir but it's due back to the library soon. Carguychris (talk) 22:56, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't have to worry about that ... I bought mine. Daniel Case (talk) 03:28, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

https://news.yahoo.com/george-santos-begs-court-let-173307231.html, https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=591295111&rlz=1C1VDKB_enGB1085GB1085&q=george+santos+%2B+%22evictions%22&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiiyMSGmJKDAxU9ZkEAHbPfA_UQ5t4CegQILhAB&biw=1920&bih=911&dpr=1, https://therealdeal.com/new-york/2023/01/06/in-george-santos-eviction-drama-a-glimpse-of-how-tenants-exploit-rent-relief/, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/ap-sources-u-s-rep-george-santos-facing-federal-charges that should do for now. Slatersteven (talk) 19:36, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

George Santos's Wikipedia user page

What's wrong with adding Santos's Wikipedia user page as an external link as was done here? I saw that the article Seedfeeder has their Wikipedia user page linked that way, and thought it would be appropriate to do the same in this article. Isabela ciao (talk) 04:57, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Well, for one thing, Seedfeeder is an artist notable for Wikipedia activities only. I'm not even sure what that article is doing here. But George Santos served in Congress and there's no point in linking to his wiki user, it's navel-gazing. Andre🚐 05:11, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

The user page is an autobiography. Santos wrote about himself. Isabela ciao (talk) 05:13, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Most likely but not definitively written by hin, and guaranteed to contain several inaccuracies. We can cover the issues raised therein using secondary sources and I don't think we need to link to that. Andre🚐 05:16, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

That user page is already mentioned in the article (the first sentence in the subsection named "Employment"). Isabela ciao (talk) 05:19, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, cited to the news article, not the primary wiki link. If you want to, you can bundle it into that reference as a footnote. Better than an external link. Andre🚐 05:21, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Frankly, while we're at this, we should also remove that "this article has been mentioned by a media organization ..." box from the top of the page, since Santos's 2011 userpage was the page mentioned, not the article. Daniel Case (talk) 17:16, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. I have removed the template. Isabela ciao (talk) 18:30, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Reverted. " In November, a Wiki user named Devmaster88 edited the Wikipedia page for then congressman-elect George Santos" [3] Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 22:44, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

If the above was about The Guardian and not Politico, The Guardian says "Politico noted that if Santos’s Wikipedia entry, which contained the Hannah Montana claim, was not written by Santos – who was then posing as Anthony Devolder – it would mean it was written by someone posing as Santos." That is about this WP-article. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 22:49, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

You are right, the mentions are not about the user page incident but about this article. Andre🚐 23:02, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Infobox Indictments

As mentioned in the edit summary, it appears including details surrounding indictments in a BLPs infobox is inappropriate and a violation of NPOV. Please do not restore without consensus. Kcmastrpc (talk) 12:59, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Kudos for the removal. GoodDay (talk) 04:09, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Draft:Vish Burra, “chief of operations” for Santos

I just created a draft for Vish Burra. Any help with expansion would be appreciated. Thriley (talk) 20:56, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Good start. I've added another RS and some more detail. There's quite a bit that can be added. Nowa (talk) 23:18, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

I promoted the article to article space. Nowa (talk) 17:02, 12 January 2024 (UTC)