Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton

GAR debate

Wikipedia:Good_article_reassessment/Hillary_Rodham_Clinton/3

If She's of French Canadian Descent, She may also be Part Native American

Many French Canadians have some Native heritage. I have noticed that she has very high cheekbones.

65.102.241.122 (talk) 06:20, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

In Living History, Hillary claims some Native American ancestry through her maternal grandmother, Della Murray, which is also where her French Canadian ancestry comes from. But this NEGHS article, which is considered authoritative by the WP:FAC people, does not mention any Native American involvement, so this WP bio does not either. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:04, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Mention of job offer in dedication of thesis

In 1969, at age 22, the subject of this article wrote 92 pages, and on just one of them she was permitted the 1st person. The dedication is her own words. The subject of the dedication is the very subject of this article. "Although I..." it begins. When the subject of an BIO article writes in the first person about themselves, it demands attention from us. The dedication is clearly carefully considered. It offers readers of WP an extraordinary unique view into the mindset of the person at that point in time. Frankly, I think the strident feminism of the 'although I have no "loving wife"' comment to be as or more revealing of the person, but it is also very clear that the subject of this article thought it important and noteworthy to document for all time that the subject of her thesis offered her a job. To have a section on the college experience of the subject of this article, and some sentences on the thesis, and not include this particular detail, is bias. Further, this point of fact, that Rodham thanked Alinsky for a job offer in her thesis, is referenced in RS on the subject of this article, and readers will be coming to our WP to see if it is true (like I did). It is true. Why not say so? Hugh (talk) 06:45, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

This is not a question of truth or sourcing (yes, she received a job offer from Alinsky, which she declined) but of importance and weighting. This article is extremely constrained on space – see for example Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Hillary Rodham Clinton/3 in which someone tried to strip the "Good Article" status away on account of it being too long – and we have to continually decide what belongs and what doesn't belong. The article has only a brief mention of the senior thesis as it is because of this (but instead we provide a link to the Hillary Rodham senior thesis article, where readers can learn about the thesis and all the speculation over it in much more detail). If we were going to expand the text, it would be to add what she actually said about Alinsky in the thesis, not add this declined job offer. And if we did mention this declined offer, we'd also need to mention that she got into Harvard Law School too, but chose Yale, and also mention that she had an offer to become a Fulbright Scholar and travel to India. You can see where this leads. And if you look at this edit and this edit and this edit and this edit, you'll see other recent examples of additions moved out of this article on the same grounds of space.

Furthermore your perspective on this seems a bit overheated. What you see as "strident feminism" others will see as a bit of humor; what you see as a "dedication" others will see as what the page is actually titled, "Acknowledgements"; what you see as the only page in the first person, others will point to the end notes on page 88, where she discusses several of the other interviews she did in the first person as well; and what you see as "important and noteworthy to document for all time" others will see as a courtesy note for a work that, like almost all student works, was likely to be read by one professor, maybe a few other people, then never see the light of day again. Finally there's a question of readers being misled. Anything associated with the name "Alinsky" is kind of radioactive these days, and without enough background on what the thesis established about her views on Alinksy, this kind of mention could lead some readers to think she was some kind of Alinsky disciple, which she was not. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:03, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

"importance and weighting" Yes, I agree, this is the issue. And Alinsky is in the news again. The HRC-Alinsky connection is being mentioned. The job offer, too. The job offer is in multiple RS but not in the WP article on HRC. That's a problem. Our readers will be coming here, like I did, incredulous. Not finding mention of the job offer, they might click thru to the thesis article, but even those that do, some will think, like I did, WP:POVFORK, and that hurts our credability; what ELSE is WP not telling me about HRC? WP:DUE provides us an objective criteria, proportion to WP:RS. Hugh (talk) 18:06, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

"Acknowledgements" Yes, I agree, it reads to me as an attempt to amuse but also a hyper-self-conscious, non-dedication dedication written by a hyper-self-conscious 22 year-old co-ed who has read a bunch of theses including their sappy dedications. The subject of this article is one of the world's leading experts on the subject of this article. "Living History" was written from the vantage point of 2003, and it is of course cited extensively. With this acknowlegment we have an interesting piece of text written ABOUT the subject of this article, BY the subject of this article, from 1969. Hugh (talk) 18:06, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

"without enough background", "Alinsky" is kind of radioactive" WP:DECISION The deleted sentence in question clearly states in an in-text citation that this is a 22-year old HRC writing, I trust our readers to interpret this in its context. We are not asked to write least-common-denominator prose that can never be misinterpreted by anyone. Hugh (talk) 18:06, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

"declined offer" the declined offers are all notable, most folks don't have those kinds of options, if you can find them in RS they belong here because they reinforce the portrait of a young woman who knows what she wants, early; I would encourage this, but that is a separate issue from this one sentence. I respectfully disagree that were we to include this one sentence on the subject's written acknowledgment of an Alinksy job offer that necessarily "we'd also need to mention" other roads not taken, unless they are also in multiple RS. (talk) 18:06, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

"too long" I don't read WP:LIMIT to authorize article freezes, it asks us to use common sense. The sentence in question is 145 bytes with ref, less than 1/10 of 1% of the article length. Hugh (talk) 18:06, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

"this kind of mention could lead some readers to think she was some kind of Alinsky disciple, which she was not" I agree she was not. May I suggest we simply change the current text from "...Rodham wrote her senior thesis about the tactics..." to "...Rodham wrote her senior thesis critiquing the tactics..." which is a fair summary of the primary and secondary RS, to address this possiblity of confusion, if can we afford the extra 5 bytes? Hugh (talk) 21:51, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

done Hugh (talk) 03:19, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

"If we were going to expand the text, it would be to add what she actually said about Alinsky in the thesis, not add this declined job offer." Having mentioned that the subject of the thesis was Alinsky, yes, I agree, we need to mention that it is a critique, which it is (see above). However, I would argue that the acknowledgement is in some sense MORE important than the content since it is HRC writing about HRC, SHE thought the job offer was important, at that moment in her life, why can't we? Hugh (talk) 21:51, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

There are many things that HRC has done that multiple RS's support that are not in this article. For instance, the most well-known story about HRC from the time in question, the reason she chose Yale Law over Harvard Law, is not in this article. Considering that over 100 books have been written about her, it's pretty clear that there's lots of stuff that's not in Wikipedia about her. Even limiting oneself to material about her in Wikipedia, this is still true of this article. The Hillary Rodham Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State article has 9,700 words, of which only about 1,300 are in the main article. That's a lot of important, relevant, well-sourced stuff left on the cutting room floor. The White House travel office controversy article, much of which directly concerns HRC, has 4,000 words, but the summary of Travelgate in the HRC main article is only about 130 words. White House FBI files controversy 2,300 words, main article less than 100. And so on. These aren't POVFORKs, these are examples of the standard way to treat an important event in more detail. In fact the latter two articles have both made GA status.

As for HRC writing about HRC, there's hundreds of pages of that in Living History, most of which we completely ignore. As for "the portrait of a young woman who knows what she wants, early," I'm pretty sure she didn't have in mind marrying a politician and moving to Arkansas. So again, I think you're really overinterpreting these acknowledgements.

perhaps. I think you may be undervaluing them. safest then is to take them at face value, a few sentences written by HRC about HRC in 1969. Hugh (talk) 04:24, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

You also seem to think that if X is in the news, and readers come to Wikipedia and don't find anything about X, that's a problem. It isn't. See WP:NOTNEWSPAPER. People who want to learn more about the Alinsky thesis should go to that Dedman article – it's still the best thing written about it – and then they should track down a copy of the thesis itself and read it for themselves. (Most will probably give up around page 11 or 12 when the discussion starts to get theoretical, with no 'Workers of the world, unite!' anywhere.)

Thanks, I understand that WP is not a newspaper. A use case for the HRC article in WP is folks coming to check this particular point of fact, failing that maybe get a ref. It seems odd for a Wikipedian to say "anyone who really wants to learn about X can always go to the primary & 2ndary sources." Seems like that position kinda undermines the whole endeavor. Hugh (talk) 04:24, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

But in any case, I'm willing to create an explanatory Note that gives a bit more detail on the thesis, includes the job offer, and includes her other choices at the time as well as the why-declined-Harvard story. The Notes don't get included in the word count and that's how the article currently handles other things of this ilk, including ones like Tammy Wynette and baked cookies that are better known than this. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:18, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

what ilk? perceived unflattering? Hugh (talk) 04:24, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand why you state what you are willing to do. Not a word can be added, and let me guess, not a word deleted either. HRC is GA. HRC is the perfect WP article. Is WP:LIMIT a backdoor to WP:OWNER? I feel WP:LIMIT is being used to avoid what we should really be engaged in, a good faith discussion on the merits of the 145 characters deleted. Hugh (talk) 04:24, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

On second thought, a Note isn't really right here, because that was intended to help explain events that didn't have an article of their own. This one does. So back to "A use case for the HRC article in WP is folks coming to check this particular point of fact." They do see this particular fact if they find the Hillary Rodham senior thesis article. So I've changed the text in the main article to have an extra link to this article and I've expanded the overtext of the link that is there. It should now be much more 'tempting' to click on that link. Also note that many people find things in Wikipedia by directly coming from search engines, often in response to recent news. I checked, and this Google search for <hillary clinton saul alinsky thesis> finds the thesis article as the second hit, not this main article, as does this Google search for <hillary clinton saul alinsky job offer>. Same story with this Bing search.

WP:MOS We are asked to write articles that are easy to navigate in and of themselves, without resort an external tool such as Google or other. Hugh (talk) 18:42, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I didn't make myself clear, I guess. If WP has an article located at a place that Google ranks high, that's a good thing, since experience has shown that's how many readers land at any particular page. But obviously, internal navigation is also very important. Besides the two links just discussed, Hillary Rodham senior thesis is also linked to from the {{Hillary Rodham Clinton}} template that's at the bottom of this and many other articles, and from Category:Hillary Rodham Clinton. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:17, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I would note that the Dedman story came out five years ago, in March 2007, and of the millions of readers of this article and the hundreds of commenters on this Talk page, you're the very first one to be upset that the declined Alinsky job offer isn't in the main article. It's good that you added it to Hillary Rodham senior thesis (it was an oversight by me to leave it out), but that's where it belongs (and if you look at Talk:Hillary Rodham senior thesis you'll see that I've been a strong defender of that article's existence in the past). Again, WP:Summary style has to be respected – there are some juicy parts to the Travelgate story, for example, such as "hell to pay" and "congenital liar" and "a more forceful response to that—on the bridge of Mr. Safire's nose" – but they are to be found in White House travel office controversy not in the main article.

I'm not upset, thanks, don't worry about me, ok? Let's worry about what's best for our readers. Hugh (talk) 18:42, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

"WP:Summary style has to be respected" I agree, thanks, WP:SUMMARY is the way forward for this immediate issue and more broadly for this article and its major problem, WP:LIMIT. Hugh (talk) 18:42, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Look, clearly I think the current length of the article is appropriate, since I strongly defended it at the last GAR. As you suspect, I don't think this article has any major problems, on this count or otherwise. And as you point out, WP:SIZE is just a guideline, and there are a number of high-quality FA and GA articles that exceed it, just like this one does. Nevertheless, people zero in on this one for some reason, so I do make an effort to keep the size from just growing willy-nilly. My main objection to your change is undue weight, both in terms of not showing the other choices from back then and in terms of making the Alinsky connection appear to be stronger than it actually was. I'm a big believer in finding a place where such associations or events or positions can be explained in much more detail, to give full context for good understanding. That's one of the reasons all the Category:Political positions of American politicians articles were created, for example. It was simply impossible to give those subjects fair treatment inside the main BLPs. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:17, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

"This article is extremely constrained on space" in response to an experienced editor adding one sentence with a reference, and then a few days later "the current length of the article is appropriate" in response to a suggestion from an experienced editor on a way forward on WP:LIMIT, seems something of a finesse at best, almost WP:LAWYER-ish to me Hugh (talk) 21:40, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I am learning that a WP article can eventually evolve into a sweet spot where nothing can be added and nothing can be taken away. I am learning advanced WP:LAWYERING techniques. Thank you. May I respectfully suggest we consider full protection for this article in celebration of our achievement of the perfect WP article. I would like to revise my earlier review. In my opinion the main problem with this article is WP:OWNER, and WP:LIMIT and the deliberate obsfucations of the WP:SUMMARY main/subarticle structure, which frustrates editorial progress on WP:LIMIT, are symptoms. Hugh (talk) 15:31, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Anyway, it would be useful to see what others think. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:17, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 4 February 2012

In August 1974, Rodham moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas, and became one of only two female faculty members in the School of Law at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville,[58][59] where Bill Clinton also was.

remove 'where Bill Clinton also was' as redundant and grammatically infantile Garyfleshman (talk) 00:13, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Y Done --Bryce (talk | contribs) 02:11, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

The idea, if awkwardly worded, was to make clear that Bill was also at the university in Fayetteville at the time (not in Little Rock), but I guess that can be inferred from the previous context. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:58, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Excessive subsectioning

I do not agree with HughD's breaking up of the article into third-level subsections. Excessively large Tables of Content are frowned upon, especially at WP:FAC (see for example this exchange, where I had to defend it at just a two-level state). WP:SUMMARY does not require new subheadings every time a detailed article is mentioned, just for the most major ones that are directly linked to the article topic. If an author writes ten books each of which has an article, that does not require ten subheadings in the author article. If a famous figure has an article exploring some relatively minor matter, such as Hillary Rodham senior thesis, that does not mean that matter merits a subheading in the main article. (I recently threw out a separate section about Seamus (dog) from the Mitt Romney article for the very same reason.) If someone is involved in a major event that many other people are involved in too, it does not require a subheading (e.g., Whitewater controversy is about a lot more than just Hillary). This is a solution in search of a problem; there is no evidence that anybody ever had trouble finding material in this article about Whitewater, Travelgate, etc. Wasted Time R (talk) 21:23, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Furthermore HughD's restructuring brings about problems of WP:Undue weight and WP:BLP fairness, by focusing all of the new third-level subheadings on various controversies and investigations. Bear in mind that Hillary was never charged with any wrongdoing, much less found guilty, in any of these investigations. Many people consider that they were politically motivated and/or the result of an Independent Counsel process that got out of hand. The previous section title of "Whitewater and other investigations" is quite adequate, especially considering that they were all carried out under the umbrella of the Whitewater Independent Counsel. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:06, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

"Many people consider that they were politically motivated" I agree; this POV is available in multiple WP:RS and is an omission in the article content. Hugh (talk) 19:38, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

done, make possible political motivation explicit in content WP:NPOV Hugh (talk) 22:55, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

"Hillary was never charged with any wrongdoing, much less found guilty" Please review WP:WEIGHT. Weight is proportion to WP:RS. Weight is independent of guilt/innocence. Thanks. 18:50, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Please cite WP:MOS in support of your characterization of a third level of subheadings as excessive. Thanks. Hugh (talk) 18:50, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Repost request: Please cite WP:MOS in support of your characterization of a third level of subheadings as excessive. Thanks. Hugh (talk) 17:23, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

REPOST WP:CONSENSUS: Please cite a policy or guideline in support of your characterization of a 3rd level of subheadings as "excessive." Hugh (talk) 02:18, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Experience at FAC with respect to the WP:WIAFA 2b "a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents" requirement. I've seen longish two-level ToC's objected to, including during one of this article's FAC's, so I'm pretty sure that long three-level ones would be objected to even more. (I think the basic objection is to articles whose structure ends up looking like a computer manual.) Wasted Time R (talk) 04:58, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

REPOST WP:CONSENSUS: Please cite a policy or guideline in support of your characterization of a 3rd level of subheadings as "excessive."

"experience at FAC" not a policy or guideline Hugh (talk) 05:41, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

in any case HRC is not a FAC or FA; I don't think it's GA, it's too long due to a severe WP:OWNER problem Hugh (talk) 05:41, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

"Overwhelming" is not the same as excessive, what is your objective basis for claiming 3 levels of subheadings in one of WP's LONGEST most COMPLEX articles is excessive? please advise. WP:LAY makes 6 levels available to us; if any article needs 3 it's HRC! Hugh (talk) 05:41, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

We're going around in circles on this point. How about if you draft up a proposal for what you think the full ToC should be, at however many levels you think it should be, and then I can comment. And if you don't think the article should be GA, then you could put it up at WP:GAR. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:52, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, I have to correct myself. I've now gone through about 50 of the "long" FA articles (similar or longer in length to this article), and the Tables of Contents in them are of all different shapes and sizes, including a few that are very long and a number that go to three levels. So I generalized incorrectly from the feedback I got at one of this article's FACs, and clearly WIAFA 2b will not prevent a longer or deeper ToC in this article. I should have done this check before, when we first got into this question. So I'd suggest again, make an outline of what you think a better ToC would be, and we'll look over that. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:31, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much! this is very heartening for me Hugh (talk) 17:03, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I will say, though, by looking at other articles I still think I'm right that the existence of a sub/detail article does not mean the main article has to have a subheading for it. FA John McCain does not have a subheading that corresponds to either Keating Five or John McCain lobbyist controversy. FA Nikita Khrushchev does not have a subheading that corresponds to Khrushchev Thaw or Kitchen Debate. FA Richard Nixon does not have a subheading that corresponds to Richard Nixon's last press conference or one limited to Checkers speech. FA Ronald Reagan does not have a subheading corresponding to There you go again or Trust, but verify. GA Bill Clinton does not have a subheading that corresponds to Impeachment of Bill Clinton or one limited to Lewinsky scandal. And so on. So in drawing up an outline for an expanded table of contents, the existing sub/detail articles should not be the determining factor, but instead whatever makes the most sense for the material in the main article. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:36, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Please refrain from blanket undoes and please limit your edits to individual sections and please cite a WP policy or guideline on each edit. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 18:50, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

This article "Almost certainly should be divided" as per WP:LIMIT. WP:SUMMARY is how we deal with WP:LIMIT issues. HRC is WP:BLP and continues to do notable things. Let's make the main/subartcle structure more explicit, leave the subheadings and main/details/see alsos in place, and see what happens, to encourage editors to consider the appropriate level for an edit or new content. If we can move one sentence from each section to a subarticle we can get off the long list. If we hide the subarticles it won't happen (WP:LIMIT editor issue). If you wish to advocate for a new summary style which eschews subheadings and main/details/see alsos in favor of discrete or multiple in-text wikilinks, the talk pages of the guidelines might be a better forum. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 19:21, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:WIAFA 2b says "a system of hierarchical section headings and a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents". I submit that your proposed table of contents is too long and too deep and would be rejected there. All of your edit comments have used WP:SUMMARY as a justification, but it does not say what you seem to think it says. Look at the World War II article that it uses as a primary example. Not all of the "main", "seealso", and "details" xrefs to subarticles have their own subheading, in fact many do not. And many of the most prominent and highly-read subarticles, such as Battle of Britain, Attack on Pearl Harbor, and D-Day do not even have xrefs at all, there are just have simple links to them in the text. So your idea that the existence of subarticles must dictate the sectioning structure of the main article is not correct. The sectioning structure of the main article must make sense based on what's most important for the topic. Wasted Time R (talk) 19:37, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

All of WWII is 180K, HRC at mid-career is 190K. Hugh (talk) 20:12, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

She's hardly at mid-career, she's talking about retiring at the end of this Sec State term. If she changes her mind and gets elected president in 2016, then I'm all with you, this article will have to be restructured. Until then, this is a bridge we don't need to cross. Wasted Time R (talk) 20:19, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

All of WWII is shorter than HRC. Hugh (talk) 17:04, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Bill, a 2-term Leader of the Free World & 3+ term governor, is shorter than Hill. Hugh (talk) 23:03, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Now, increasing the visibility of the subarticles is another matter. I am fine with attempts to do this that do not distort the article structure. After all, I wrote many of the subarticles, and am eager for people to read them! Additions of extra "further info" xrefs under the existing subheadings would be okay with me, for example.

Finally, you are ignoring the most important guideline of all. Wikipedia operates by WP:Consensus, and right now you do not have it for the changes you are making. Wasted Time R (talk) 19:44, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Also, you miscalculated at WP:LIMIT. Based on readable prose size, it is not in the "Almost certainly should be divided" category. It is on Special:Longpages, to be sure, but only in 379th place, which means there's a lot that are longer. Moreover, User:Dr pda/Featured article statistics shows that there are 33 current Featured Articles longer than it, some much longer, including some BLPs of roughly similar subjects (Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, etc.), and who knows how many GA articles are longer than it as well. Wasted Time R (talk) 20:11, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Please cite WP:MOS, policy or guideline in support of your contention that this article should be NOT be further divided. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 17:23, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Repost request: I find no reference in WP:MOS to a rank cut-off on Special:Longpages as a criterion for making judgements on WP:LIMIT. Please direct me. Thank you. WP:CONSENSUS Hugh (talk) 22:20, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

HRC is the 379th longest of 3,866,229 articles, in other words HRC is in the top ONE HUNDREDTH of 1% of all articles. Hugh (talk) 07:38, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

A normative approach to policies and guidelines, an interesting proposal! Articles are only long if they are in the, I don't know, what are you comfotable with? say top one thousandth of one percent of all articles. Why don't you bring this up at WP:LIMIT talk? Go ahead and get the discussion started and I'll jump in and get your back, we'll call it WP:CONSENSUS. This could greatly simplify policies and guidelines and would be a LOT more flexible, don't you agree? Hugh (talk) 07:38, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

i agree with this analysis and conclusion completely. The structure described has served this complex article well, and I see no reason to change it. Tvoz/talk 05:42, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I've undone the changes accordingly. There would have to be a significant consensus in favor of such a major structural change. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:28, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Correct - and despite there being no consensus, Hugh returned the article to his preferred structure. I reverted to the long-standing consensus structure, as well as the "under infobox" template. There is no consensus for these changes, and they shouldn't be made without it - especially considering the extensive review this article has received. Discussion here is always welcome, of course. Tvoz/talk 21:10, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

"long-standing consensus structure" please provide a reference, thank you. do you refer to the 2009 GAR, when this article was 60K, less than 1/3 its current length? WP:CCC Hugh (talk) 21:27, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

You're mixing up two different metrics, total byte length (what the history command shows) and readable prose size (what the "page size" tool shows). The article has only increased a little in size since 2009. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:16, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

plase provide a reference to the "long-standing consensus structure" thanks Hugh (talk) 22:57, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Repost request: please provide a reference to the "long-standing consensus" on the structure. thanks Hugh (talk) 17:23, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Like she said. HughD, you're just edit-warring at this point. WP:DRNC is a non-binding essay and talks about editors who don't give reasons for reversion to consensus, but I've filled these Talk sections with reasons so even that essay is inapplicable. I know you're torqued at me because I didn't want to include the Alinksy job offer in the main article, but that's no reason to get yourself blocked or something. I'm actually a reasonable guy and I am willing to discuss matters with you, but you're just engaging in unilaterial actions at this point. Wasted Time R (talk) 21:16, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

please don't speak for me, thank you WP:NPA Hugh (talk) 21:27, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

every edit is a unilateral action WP:BOLD Hugh (talk) 21:27, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Let's start over: four issues of contention

Let's start over. I can identify four issues of contention:

1. Should this article mention the Alinksy job offer?
2. Should this article's sectioning be expanded to introduce a third level of subsections, tied to the subarticles that exist on various controversies and investigations?
3. Is the article size too long per WP:LIMIT?
4. What links should exist in the {{HillaryRodhamClintonSegmentsUnderInfoBox}} template that produces the "Hillary Rodham Clinton series" box under the infobox?

On #1, Tvoz said it was not notable in her edit summary and I said it was undue weight unless her other career options from that time were described as well. But clearly this is a localized point of dispute and I'm discuss it again.

On #2, this is that the reversions have been about. You began by using WP:SUMMARY as a justification but you now seem to be using WP:LIMIT as a justification. But this expanding of the table of contents does nothing to shorten to shorten the article, just to highlight various controversies she was involved in. So I think this disagreement is unrelated to the size issue of #3. And I think you have misread WP:SUMMARY as requiring that every subarticle be represented via a subheading. Tvoz also strongly disagrees with this change, as she noted above.

You oppose any lengthening of the TOC yet oppose any shortening of article. Quite the finesse once again WP:LAWYERING. Should not an article with a compelling reason to exceed WP:LIMIT be expected to have a longer than average TOC? As long as the TOC of this article is not in the top one one-hundredth of 1% of the longest TOCs of all WP articles, we're fine, right? Hugh (talk) 02:12, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Sure, there is a correlation between length of article and length of ToC, but it isn't necessarily linear. I think the longest FA article of all is Elvis Presley, but the ToC isn't super long and stays at two levels. If I thought there was a compelling reason to go to a third level with this article's ToC, I would make an argument for it, but so far I haven't seen it. In particular, I don't think it's needed to delineate or mark sub/detail articles, as we've already discussed. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:10, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

On #3, The GAR on this two years ago started with a proposal this be article be pruned back to 60 KB of readable prose, but ended without delisting the article and instead giving a recommendation that "article editors should stay on their toes and look for further trims at every opportunity". As I've explained above, that's what I've tried to do, keep the article at its present level of detail but look for ways to minimize its ongoing growth (it has grown by about 7 KB readable prose size since that GAR, almost exclusively due to additions in the "Secretary of State" section. What is your proposal here? To get back to 60 KB? What specifically would you propose to trim out? WP:LIMIT's rule of thumb for an article with this amount of readable prose size is "Probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading time)" and, just as I said at the GAR, I believe the current length is justified here.

On #4, this has been the other place that has seen some reversions. I'm open to discussion about what this series box should contain. The original editor who pushed for their use, Justmeherenow, has since left the scene. At the time, they were intended for the major biographical subarticles only – see the ones for John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, which were the first of these for American political BLP subjects – but other, lesser links have appeared in some of these 'series' boxes as well ("Awards and honors" and "List of books" in this article, "Electoral history" in the Mitt Romney one). One way to go forward would be to include as many subarticles and detail articles as possible, which seems to be what the Barack Obama one does. I would be okay with that, but we need to see what Tvoz has to say on it. But I am against just expanding it to include the two subarticles on the senior thesis and cattle futures trading. Others that are not listed are more important, including Whitewater and Travelgate and the 2000 U.S. senate election.

So anyway, let's see if we can discuss each of these points separately and not get them mixed up with each other, which is what I think has happened in the back-and-forth above. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:16, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Reviewing the talk of the last few days I can understand why you might want to start over. May I respectfully suggest you put some hard thought into how you treat your fellow Wikipedians. I'm spending a lot less time on talk pages and a lot more time on content and I'm really, really happy about that. This is not fun for me. There's work to do. You win. Congratulations on the perfect WP article! Hugh (talk) 17:13, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

That comment was uncalled for. Wasted Time R is one of the most accommodating editors I've worked with here - even-handed and always willing to hear another opinion and try to incorporate it into the varied group of articles he regularly edits. In fact he treats his fellow editors a lot better than many other editors do. Discussing different approaches to how to edit an article is exactly what we should be doing, not unilaterally changing text in the face of objections that are raised. Bold doesn't trump consensus. Tvoz/talk 08:02, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

On the substance re #4 - I don't love the "under infobox" box approach in general, but if you look closely at the Obama article you'll see that box only includes fairly major subarticles - there are a lot not included, and that makes sense. Selecting cattle futures and senior thesis to add to the HRC box gives them much more weight than I think they should have - why those two and not some of the others? They don't belong there, in my opinion, The answer, I think, is the navigation box on the bottom of the page that correctly lists all of the articles related to Hillary, as do the similar nav boxes on the bottom of Obama under "Barack Obama"and "Public image". Listing all of them in the under-infobox boxes would be unwieldy and not helpful as a navigation tool. I'd consider opening up the nav boxes a bit, here and especially on Obama, to add maybe one or two more visible bars so people would know what's under there, but if we keep the under-infobox boxes, I would keep them short so they are useful. I think including the list of books by and about her is a good idea, and I'd leave off the awards and honors.

On #1 the Alinsky "job offer" - I think mentioning it in the subarticle is appropriate, and unnecessary here. I said not notable, but what I should have said is not notable enough to be here. No problem with it being mentioned in the sub, but including it here suggests that it had more importance in her life than we have evidence of.

On #3, I think WTR has done an excellent job of balancing the need to include new material with the need to keep the article to some kind of reasonable length. As has been said over and over again, this subject has had a complex life, encompassing several careers, and they all need to be touched upon here - I agree completely that this article is a prime example of one for which some extra length and reading time is justified.

I understand you are very happy with the article and each other, thanks. Do any 2 editors constitute WP:CONSENSUS? Do I need a 2nd? Hugh (talk) 02:12, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

On #2, I've already said that adding those subsections and thereby including them in the TOC gives them much more weight than they should have. As WTR said, this has nothing to do with WP:LIMIT and misunderstands WP:SUMMARY. Tvoz/talk 08:02, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Please reference a policy or guideline relating subheadings to weight. Hugh (talk) 02:12, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

HughD, the most recent change you made to "Whitewater and other investigations" is more along the lines of what I was thinking of. However, it suffers from making the text choppy with italicized xrefs. Also, because not every item in the paragraph has a detail article (Foster files doesn't), it could get a bit confusing as to what text corresponds to what xref. (And you left out the xref to the Filegate article, was that intentional or an oversight?) I made a change that took the common alternate approach of listing a series of detail articles underneath the overall section header. See what you think. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:08, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I like this new section hatnote that lists the sub articles - it works well and is a good improvement to the article, making it easier to find the links. Tvoz/talk 23:12, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, thank you very much! this is encouraging. Hatnotes are key to moving forward with this article. Editor issues are equally valid as reader issues WP:LIMIT. As I suggested 5 Feb above and now repeat, we need to make the article/subarticle relationships as explicit as possible in order to better share this editing effort with our fellow editors, that they may come along and make informed decisions about whether current content or new content is best in the main article or in a related article. If our peers don't know about the related articles this won't happen. And you know what would make it even EASIER to find the links? If the links were closer to the material they summarize. Hugh (talk) 17:20, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

HughD, to respond to your "repeat" requests, I didn't say that MoS discouraged long and deep Table of Contents, but WP:WIAFA 2b does, and this article is always kept at an FAC level (see for example Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton/Archive 13#When are you planning to run this article through FAC?). Regarding "long-standing consensus structure", my point is that this is an article that works, in the sense that it's GA/near FA and has been stable for a long time. It is describing a very controversial figure in American politics, who as Tvoz says has had a number of very distinct stages to her life and career. In order to thoroughly cover all of her life and accomplishments and setbacks and controversies, the article has to be detailed, present all views, and be heavily cited. I believe this article has successfully done this. It has had relatively few edit wars given its controversial nature and never been locked down or put on 1RR probation or built up 50 talk page archives or shown the other symptoms of an embattled article (compare to the Obama and Palin articles, for example). Size is not the most important criteria in a BLP; conformance to WP:BLP, WP:V, and WP:NPOV are, and I believe this article does all that well. You yourself said "WP:LIMIT asks us to use common sense" and I think common sense and years of experience indicates that, as Tvoz said, the extra length here is justifiable. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:34, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Please direct me to where WP:WIAFA references "long and deep Table of Contents" thanks Hugh (talk) 02:12, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

My interpretation of WIAFA 2b "a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents". Your mileage may vary. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:29, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

See above – having looked at many long FA articles, I'm now correcting myself on this point – long and three-level ToC's are clearly accepted at FAC. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:34, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Please show me where a policy or guideline that references this "works" thing When in doubt use italics? I would like to learn more about this criteria, thanks Hugh (talk) 02:12, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I fully understand why this article is what you call "stable" T, WTR I would like to hear from both of you individually what WP:OWNER means to you Hugh (talk) 02:12, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

"very distinct stages" REPOST (no response earlier in disregard of WP:CONSENSUS) Bill, a 2-term Leader of the Free World, 3+ term governor, attorney, author, activist, is shorter than Hill. Hugh (talk) 02:12, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

"common sense" REPOST (no response earlier in disregard of WP:CONSENSUS) All of WWII is shorter than HRC Hugh (talk) 02:12, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

"50 talk page archives" I fully understand the many frequent talk page archivings. I expect to participate in when this particular discussion is archived WP:CONCENSUS thanks Hugh (talk) 02:12, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Regarding who's longer than who: It varies a lot, like everything else on WP, since there's no central oversight. Bill Clinton is surprisingly short, I agree. I haven't looked at it enough to have an opinion about whether that length is appropriate or not. On the other hand, to pick another example, Madonna (entertainer) is 3 Kb readable prose longer than this article and is FA. It's not a bad comparison because they both can lay claim to being the most well-known woman in the world at one time or another, with a cultural impact in addition to their professional accomplishments. We can go back and forth finding articles longer and shorter than this one, but at the end of the day I believe that the appropriate length should be found that best fits each article's subject, not in comparison with other articles. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:29, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Regarding "works", "stable", and ownership, I will just quote what's at WP:OAS:

Ownership and stewardship

Do not confuse stewardship with ownership. Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that "anyone can edit", but not all edits bring improvement. In many cases, a core group of editors will have worked to build the article up to its present state, and will revert unconstructive edits in order to preserve the quality of the encyclopedia. Such reversion does not in itself constitute ownership, and will normally be supported by an explanatory edit summary referring to Wikipedia policies and guidelines, previous reviews and discussions, or specific grammar or prose problems introduced by the edit. Where disagreement persists after such a reversion, the editor proposing the change should first take the matter to the talk page, without personal comments or accusations of ownership. In this way, the specifics of any change can be discussed with the editors who are familiar with the article, who are likewise expected to discuss the content civilly.

non-responsive again. I asked you what it means to you Hugh (talk) 05:49, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

This is what it means to me, that's why I quoted it at length. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:56, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Featured articles

While Featured articles (identified by a bronze star in the upper-right corner LinkFA-star.png) are open for editing like any other, they have gone through a community review process as Featured article candidates, where they are checked for high quality sources, a thorough survey of the relevant literature, and compliance with image policy and with Wikipedia's Manual of style. Editors are asked to take particular care when editing a Featured article; it is considerate to discuss significant changes of text or images on the talk page first. Explaining civilly why sources and policies support a particular version of a featured article does not constitute ownership. The {{articlehistory}} template on the talk page will contain a link to the Featured article candidacy and any subsequent Featured article reviews.

I believe both of these paragraphs apply to this article (while it's not FA, it's as pretty much as close as you can get to it, so I think the same spirit should apply). Wasted Time R (talk) 05:29, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I understand you are very, very happy with this article exactly as it is. I must object to you defending WP:OWNER behavior using WP:WIAFA criteria. HRC is not FAC, it is not FA, and it is not GA, they are not states of being they are points in time. Forgive me for not indulging Hugh (talk) 05:58, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

The article is currently GA. If you believe it does not meet WP:WIAGA anymore, you can take it to WP:GAR. Many editors spend a lot of time and effort preparing articles for WP:WIAFA criteria, so in practice a lot of the discussion about how articles should best be presented revolves around that. Wasted Time R (talk) 06:10, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:EDIT asks us to give a reason for our edits. HRC has a talk page, I have a talk page. If you have something to say to me, kindly do not do it in edit summaries. I ask that you cite a WP policy or guideline on each edit. Thank you. Are you above WP policies and guidelines? Hugh (talk) 05:00, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

What are you referring to? This edit summary, I guess: "if the sec header is going to explicitly say IC investigations, then the xrefs right below it can't include the one that wasn't IC (there is still the text link)". I was merely explaining why I thought the previous change introduced an inconsistency and how my change was intended to fix it. Of course, I'm not above policies and guidelines. But no, I will not "cite a WP policy or guideline on each edit". No editor does that, including you (check your last 500 edits), and you know it. That's an uncivil request. You could show my edit summary to a dozen other editors and no one would find it objectionable. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:40, 9 February 2012 (UTC)